My trip in and out of the Church of Scientology

For 20 years I was an active member of the Church of Scientology, first as a public person taking courses, then as a staff member and finally as an international missionary. My trajectory through the church traces a dual path of increasing awareness and improvement while at the same time trying not to notice the things that were wrong. The problem was that the more aware I became the harder it was to ignore what wasn’t right.

My story is not heroic. I made and accepted excuses for the “bad” parts of the Church. In many cases I perpetrated wrongnesses on others, led witch hunts and used force and threats to get compliance. In the end it was only when I, personally, had been repeatedly betrayed that I was prompted to take action.

Last week I received a call from the local Org ethics officer, informing me that I had been declared a suppressive person. No reason was given, I was not sent, or shown, or even read my SP declare. Such was my ignoble ending of church membership!

The trip started in 1980 in Bellevue, Washington. I had just moved to Washington and was looking for a job when I was stopped by an attractive gal in the street and asked to do a survey. This led to taking the personality test and signing up for the Communications Course.

Back then the course consisted of reading the definitions of basic scientology terms and then doing the Training Routines (TRs). I completed the course in a few weeks and was then signed up for an auditor training package at the mission.

In a few more months I completed the training and became a New Era Dianetics Auditor. I then went over to the local Scientology Org and did my internship and started the next training levels.

Things seemed pretty cool in Scientology, there were lots of young people, like me, and the idealism was up my alley. “To hell with the “authorities” let’s create a better world.” The concept of the reactive mind was very real and as I audited more people I could really see that there was a hope.

Andy at Clear Lake

In June 1981 I joined staff at Bellevue Mission. I was posted in Division 6 and was a body router, basic course supervisor and Div 6 registrar. I was good at doing test evaluations and started giving introductory lectures.

In 1982 the Bellevue Mission went completely off the rails and got into the de-dinging (a whack-o squirrel process), flowing power to those above us (meaning that staff were forced to do favors for those above us) and other Nazi-scientology stuff. We went whole-hog: the mission sold intensives of de-dinging, engaged in group crush-close regging and generally went crazy. I recall graduation events at the local org during this time period. A normal Friday night graduation would take an hour or so. But during the “de-dinging” era they took three hours! This was because you couldn’t stop clapping! No one wanted to be the first person to stop clapping because it would mean that you had some out-ethics…so when a speaker made a mention of how great LRH was we all started clapping, and clapping, and clapping…then we’d start to nervously look sideways at each other, each person secretly wanting to stop clapping, but no one wanting to be the first one to stop. Ah, the good old days…

Anyway, we (Bellevue Mission) languished for three (1982 to 1985) long years after this, and what pulled us out was the beginning of the consulting companies starting up and sending in public. Our old Mission Holder, Mike Chatelain, started to work for David Singer in 1985 (they opened a west coast office near by) and we started to get Chiropractors on lines. I became very active with the other WISE groups, Hollander, Latch and Sterling. I traveled all over the US and signed up their clients for mission services like Life Repair Auditing, some of my favorite time on staff in the US. The mission went from 1 and 2 First Service Starts a week to 10 and 12.

From my view the mid to late 1980’s were the time of greatest expansion of the Church. The Dianetics TV ads were going, there were new covers for the books and generally there was more acceptance of the Church. The future looked bright.

I became the Executive Director of the Mission (1987), did the complete Organization Executive Course, had two missions (Bellevue and Honolulu) and in 1990 found myself as the Executive Director of the Seattle Day Organization (during the Good Will Games).

Being an Org ED was a complete nightmare. The incessant stupid orders and three times daily phone calls, the endless computer generated non-compliance reports, the idiotic emphasis on getting people to the “events” and the complete lack of any effective Div 6 was awful. I found the Org environment much more robotic and stultified than the Mission network. In the missions we were more allowed to think and do what we thought was best to service people. In retrospect it wasn’t that we were actually “allowed” to do more, it was simply that no one could see what we were doing. We would often and with great happiness break the rules to provide unselfish service. I used to make a joke while working at the Org that they were “so standard that they were empty.” (Empty of public, that is)

Seattle Org had moved into a 28,000 sq. ft. building before the GW games ($18,000 a month rent) and since the entire Good Will Games were a complete dud, dissemination wise, the Org was broke.

I tried to route off Org staff (I was in debt up to my eyeballs), I asked for a Committee of Evidence, was denied, blew from LA, then I was told that I was going to get some justice action. While awaiting my beheading I got in comm with Greg Hughes (he was in International Management at the time), who I knew fromSterling, and he helped me escape and come back toSeattle. I routed off Org staff, worked for a few months to pay my debt to the Org and some other debts and went back on staff at Bellevue Mission in 1992.

I was in no hurry to get back on any management line and so became the Course Supervisor for a while. Being the Supervisor was by far the best staff position I ever held. By that time I was OT 5, OEC, KTL,LOC, and had done almost every course at the Org. I completed the Elementary Data Evaluators course, (actually I liked it so much I did it twice) and felt I had a good grasp of the basics by then.

Creating an expanding course room was easy; I discovered that the most vital tool was using ARC. If the students felt that you cared about them, their lives, their problems and were really there to HELP them then they came back. It was always a mystery to me that when I would send new staff for Course Supervisor training, either to Flag or LA that they would come back with some fascist attitude towards their students. They would return with some sort of “standard” fanaticism and order the students to use their demo kit or clear words, not really helping them, or personally caring, just acting like some sort of prison guards. In my view the idea being pushed was that being “standard” meant being tough, rough, rude, almost mean and it shocked me that people thought they could service the public (or other staff!) without loads of ARC. Especially new public.

In 1993 I was asked by SMI to go to Russia for a mission project, I was always interested to see for myself what Russia was really like, so I raised some money and went. I was there two weeks with 4 or 5 other mission holders. When I got on the plane to go back I just wanted to stay. The people there in Moscow and Saint Petersburg (both missions had about 8 staff at that time) were so intent on doing Dianetics and going clear and helping others it was very theta. I got back to my post at Bellevue Mission and decided to move to Russia. It took a while to get replaced and overcome the counter intention to my leaving staff, but in 1995 I moved there.

I was well known at Scientology Missions International (SMI), due to being a mission holder, and headed to LA to visitSMIINTand set up my duties with them before heading to Russia.

By the time I arrived back in Russia (October ’95) to live and work Moscow and St Pete had grown to large booming missions and I was reluctant to go inspect or advise them as I was worried that I would mess them up (and get in trouble). My reasoning was that they had built much larger missions than I ever had, so I didn’t feel that I should be ‘advising” them. I felt like I should be learning from them!

For the first year or so, I went out to outlying cities, Perm, Nizhny Tagil, Nizhny Novgorod, Vladivostock, Novosibirsk and many more places in Russia. I also visited new Dianetics Centers in Belorussia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine. I had a great time riding the train, staying with families, lecturing and helping to expand missions. Many of these missions had never had a Clear or OT or trained Scientologist come for a visit. My duties were to inspect the mission and help them in any way needed, train staff, observe and help them get in standard tech for servicing public. I went to more than 30 missions while I was there, (1995 to 1999) inspecting, correcting and lecturing.

With out a doubt it was the most fun I ever had in Scientology, nothing before or since compares. I was not around in the 1950’s when DMSMH was released, but have heard the stories, and Russia in the late 90’s seemed just like those stories. The overall excitement was awesome. Moscow and St Pete expanded to over 100 staff each, with huge successful Div 6/s. There were co-audits going on all the time and hundreds of auditors in the missions. The course rooms were filled and the place was buzzing with excited, optimistic people. The missions had very Spartan quarters, sometimes there were 10 auditing “rooms” squeezed into what would be 2 rooms here in the US. But MEST didn’t matter, they had big booming missions, there were tons of students, FSM’s, booksellers, it was all fun and exciting. My purpose in Scientology was revitalized. Somewhat ironically my time there also formed the basis for my waking up and (slowly!) seeing how psychotic things were and eventually leaving the church.

Later, in 1997 I was asked to do projects at Moscow. I recall doing an inspection there and on a Thursday morning was inspecting and noticed that no one was on post. I was like, “Well, where are all the staff?” I was told that they were on study, as they were every morning.

I was about to go pull all the staff off course and lecture them about on Thursday we DON’T study in the morning because that’s when we get the stats up, but caught myself and realized (not for the first time) the insanity of the stat push mentality. I had dozens of other epiphanies while at Moscow and later while at St Pete missions. It started to dawn on me that one major reason for all the expansion in Russia was that they didn’t have the whacko western Sea Org nut jobs there every minute looking over their shoulders, giving them stupid orders.

I was in St Petersburg for the Dianetics (May 9th) Event in 1998. The event was held at a huge auditorium, it held more than 1,000 people. The event started at 2pm, and lasted until 8 at night. There was food, music, performances, cakes, games, balloons, prizes, speeches, and lots of fun. And this was all before the “official” event, where the DVD of the actual May 9th event was played for the public. The place was packed. No one wanted to leave early, or escape. It was night and day different from events back in the US. Can you even imagine an event in the USA where 1,000 people attended? Anyway, I was there in St Pete doing a project for SMI and it so happened that there were several Sea Org Execs there, from LA. They came to the event and were shocked. I was sitting right behind them and could hear them speaking to each other, they were aghast that the event was so long, that there were children singing, that a rock band played, they thought that this was disrespectful to LRH. They didn’t like the games or the prizes or poetry reading…(the Russian people LOVED all of this) The Sea Org Execs all thought this “fun” stuff was off purpose and not okay. The event ended with the showing of a brand new LRH film, “The Evolution of a Science”. I still recall the playing of the movie, to this day…the movie sucked! It was supposed to be for new people, but was all about psychiatry and shock therapy, it was a stupid film for new people. The Russian people were shocked and dismayed by it. Here they were having a fun party and now here is this horrid film, a real turd in the punch bowl! The Sea Org people all tried to look proud of the film, while the Russians made their displeasure known… the general consensus of the brainwashed execs was that the translation of the movie must have been poor…

By this time, after 17 years of being on staff, I had seen and experienced many countless examples of stupidity, injustice and misapplication of any rational management technology, but always wrote it off as some middle management virus. I had this idea that the guys at the top (DM and Int. Mgt.) were super cool, smart, and that they just didn’t know how whacko the middle management nut jobs were. I couldSEEthe out-points but I could not confront what they meant, wasn’t willing to follow the thought to its only logical end.

Another interesting thing was that as I stayed more and more in Moscow and St Pete in 1998 and 1999 advising the missions and lecturing I was always under pressure to study more LRH for lecture material. I read and re read all of the LRH books many times including “History of Man”. And I recall a section in that book where LRH describes a space opera society where the citizens were so indoctrinated that if one of them even had a bad thought that they would immediately turn them selves into the nearest police station.

This really hit me. I had had so many sec checks by then, for OT levels, for this and for that, so many “ethics cycles” (which of course were NOT Ethics cycles, but justice cycles in disguise) that I was stunned. I could plainly see that I was indoctrinated just like LRH described in HOM. This was a horrible idea to me because I “knew” we were freeing people, not enslaving them. Yet I could see that I was behaving like one of these implanted “citizens”. I wondered if it wasn’t just something wrong with me. I couldn’t really come to grips with it, so I just shelved it, and went on.

While I was in Russia I was sent to other countries for projects, I went to India twice to help establish missions, once to Bombay (SMIsent me there, to work with Helmut Flasch), twice to Patiala, I was also sent bySMIto Japan (to work on the Shinto project).

I was in Moscow Mission from the summer of 1997 until the end of the birthday game in 1998. Moscow Mission won the game that year (for the first time). I still have all their b-day stat graphs from then. They were doing 150 to 200 first service starts a week, 1200 to 1700 NBSTI Raw (Number of Books Sold to New People) a week and the rest of the stats there were commensurate with those Division 6 statistics. As a side note I spoke to the Moscow Org ED in September, 2010. He was in LA for some cycle and called me. His name is Anton and he was the Tech Sec when I was there in 1998. He said that they were getting around 7 first service starts a week at that time.

In March 1998SMIsent my wife and I to Fiji on a mission with Manu Tupou and Jean Harness. We opened a new mission there, recruited staff and sent them to ANZO for training. In the fall of 1998 I was also sent by the IAS to open up a Mission in the country of Burkina Faso, in West Africa.

While I was working as a pioneer, or missionary, I was awarded as a PowerFSMtwice, and as an EliteFSMtwo times, I was in fact never anFSMand never put inFSMslips on anyone while doing this work over seas.

My first award for my activities as a pioneer came in December of 1995. I was at theOTL(Sea Org Base) inMoscowand got a call fromSMIINT. Apparently there were quite a few, 10 to 20 Russian people who were FSMs and had gotten in 100 or more new people to start their first services, and they were all hoping to go to LA for the NY event. But none of them could get visas. Of course, the reason they didn’t get visas was that no one had the foresight to start the visa application process until mid-way through December, and by then it was a “hill 10” to get bodies on stage for the New Years Event.

So,SMItold my wife and me that we should come to LA and get awarded! Of course the people I spoke to atSMI, Beate Gordon and Claire Gaiman knew exactly what we had been doing, they knew we were not FSMs and had not selected anyone in, but no matter, we could come and go on stage, and we didn’t need visas! So, they bought us tickets and had us come, we were provided a place to stay. To us it was like a free (warm weather!) vacation! My wife was awarded as a powerFSMand I was awarded as an eliteFSM.

My system of pay (as worked out by Chief Officer SMIInt) was that I would go to the missions primarily to train and correct staff, and that the project financing would come from lectures. I would give lectures to the public, the mission would charge a small fee for each lecture and I would get half of the money, the mission keeping the other half. So even though I was never an FSMI was on stage. Usually I would arrive to LA a few days before the event and be given a hat of helping push other people living in LA to become power FSMs so there would be more bodies on stage. I have lots of insane stories about all of that. The last event where I was given some award was the 2000 May 9th Dianetics event where I was awarded as a top international pioneer.

As a side note about awards and the sheer insanity of them, one of the Russians I was close to was Vladimir Kiropatnik. He was the original ED of Moscow Mission. I met him when I was first there in 1993. He was a very theta and dedicated guy and worked hard to expand the Mission. In 1997 Vladimir was awarded the IAS Freedom Medal, at the event they portrayed him as the single person who opened up all of Russia to Scientology and saved the country. The PR was so over the top! I know that Vladimir was upset over how they grossly overstated what he had done. Actually this set him up for criticism from others, as many thought that he was the one who made up the lies. I was close to him and I know it was quite a PTP for him. Later when the Executive Director of Saint Petersburg Mission won the same award (Galina Petrovna) they did the same thing. It was the same with anyone and everyone I personally knew, they would over sell, exaggerate and even outright lie about the accomplishments to make them sound incredible. From my direct experience, both Vladimir and Galina definitely deserved the Freedom Medal awards. They are both incredibly hardworking and dedicated people. But the point is, why lie and exaggerate their accomplishments? Just telling the truth would have been perfectly fine. The fact of lying about the accomplishments of these people is illustrative of the entire current church management. Of course nothing beats the absurd lies they made for Tom Cruise when he won his IAS award…I recall it was an award for introducing more than a billion people to Scientology.

As I discovered at a much later time receiving these awards may have been one of the main reasons that I wound up leaving the church.

I returned toRussiain Jan 1999 and I went back to work forSMIdoing the usual. I began to get antsy about going up the bridge and wanted to get on OT 7 so I decided to start working as a WISE consultant. I worked about 7 months as a consultant inSt Petersburg, paid for OT 6, OT 7 and 10 intensives and arrived at Flag in Dec. 1999.

My plan was that I would use one or two intensives on eligibility and set ups and then have lots of intensives left over for future 6-month checks, I would be back out pioneering and be on OT 7!

But what came next was a completely horrible nightmare.

I wound up using 13 intensives of auditing, almost all of it on security checking. I cannot describe in email format how utterly awful it all was. It was unjust, demeaning, stupid, introverting and actually made me feel like I was psychotic. As I look back, I felt a sort of desperate feeling, slightly propitiative, wanting to throw my self at the feet of someone and beg forgiveness. A down tone “need to show that I’m valuable to the group” attitude and underlying this was the basic concept of “I am bad”.

I hated the auditing, but couldn’t complain because you can’t complain while you’re on a sec check unless you want it to take longer. I tried to act happy and get it done. Somehow by some miracle I was able to get my needle to float and get done. Then I pleaded that I was broke and owed money and I was allowed to leave.

This was the first time I was at an Advanced Org as a public person. I spent a lot of time in the MAA office (as a result of all the Knowledge Reports from 9 intensives of security checking). I was appalled at what went on. A day down there included lots of nervous waiting to even get in to see the MAA. Then they would review the KR’s from your sessions and assign you conditions. It was NOT a self-determined action. I tried several times to say that I didn’t think I needed to do ANY conditions for my overts, but was ordered to do so. I pointed out many times that this entire process was NOT an ethics action, but a justice action. But the deal was: Do it our way, or you’ll never get on the OT levels and go free. I saw person after person there in the MAA’s office doing lowers and amends for such stupid things as reading a site on the internet, or looking at “pornography” or masturbating. The idea that was being enforced by the MAA’s was that these actions were severely out-ethics and could bring disrepute to Scientology. I argued that labeling these actions as wrong or in any way out-ethics was itself very wrong and out ethics, as doing so would only drive in a persons anchor points. But all that I accomplished with my arguing these points was the certainty on the part of the MAA that I needed MORE security checking.

I was on the OT 6 meter drills when I left and knew I would never return. I felt that there was something definitely wrong with the auditing, but also had some idea that it was me that was nuts. I knew I liked helping people and so just wanted to go back and get busy.

From there things were a bit unsettled. I had planned to go back to Russia but was denied a visa. I discovered later that I had been blacklisted by the Russian FSB (state security agency) along with several other foreigners who had been invited to Russia by Scientology, like Malcolm McClintock, Lynn Irons and others. So, I was not allowed to return. I wound up moving to Nice, France for 6 months in late 2000, then on to Pavlodar, Kazakhstan where I worked as a WISE consultant for 9 months, then on to Copenhagen for 8 months. All the time trying to get back toRussia.

The more I was on WISE lines I noticed that things went worse for me. It seemed that as long as I was basically volunteering my time (as a Mission or Org staff member or full time pioneer) to help expand missions I was alright. I was still looked down on as I wasn’t Sea Org, but sort of barely accepted. Having been staff many years I was familiar with the pecking order, and understood how it all worked.

But now that I was mostly working in the WISE sector I was considered more of a public and less of a staff member. I could sense a change. I started to feel like a farm animal, people were eye-balling me for what they could get from me, could I be an income cycle, could I be student points, could I donate money to IAS? I was ordered to events, to ethics interviews, ordered to be on course. As a WISE consultant here were quotas for the number of our clients that were sent into a local Org orMissionfor services. There was a tacit threat over my head; if I didn’t comply with the above requirements then I would be in danger of losing my license and ability to deliver WISE courses and consulting.

I wanted to get out of consulting and I wound up going to the NYC area in 2001 (where I am from originally) to work. I had two jobs; one wasCOOof a company in NJ with several interesting patents we were trying to get going. As that company was getting just started I needed more pay and started to work as a consultant again in the WISE sector.

In 2002 I got an 11 page KR written on me by Walter Kotric (CO CLO EU). He accused me of every crime under the sun and said that I was never allowed back on his continent. I sent back a more or less fuck you response and asked for a Committee of Evidence. Nothing happened. Every product I had achieved was attacked.

One might think it strange that a person who was routinely honored by Int. Management each year would be attacked. But in truth the awardees on stage at the Int Events had routinely had their production stats puffed up (NOT by the person, but by the management terminals!) to look stellar. There was no real recognition from Int Management of having DONE anything really good, we were all just statistics, bodies gotten on stage, part of the PR for the church.

Interestingly I had heard from 2 people, Barb Wiseman (a pioneer in Russia in the early 1990’s) and Malcolm McClintock (he ran the Sea Org Base in Moscow in early 2000) that Walter Kotric HATED any Scientologists who went Pioneering “on his Continent”. Barbara told me that Walter went out of his way to attack her when she was awarded as a Power FSM for her work there in 1993, an award that she NEVER asked for.

In April of 2003 I received a phone call and ordered by WISE International to report to LA. No reason, just come,NOW. I arrived and met two other Russian Pioneers there, Bud Reichle and Lynn Irons. We went to the Scientology Headquarters on Hollywood Boulevard and met with some high up woman in OSA (Judith?) and a guy by the name of Dan Brown. They explained that we were all called there because of our involvement in Russia. They told us that currently there was trouble in Russia and that the plan was to do ethics cycles on us three, sort of to destimulate the area from afar. I was shown some reference from the Suppressed Person Rundown. The idea was that if we three did an ethics cycle, related to tour work inRussia, the result would be a bettering of the overall conditions of Scientology inRussia. It was sort of like: Currently Scientology in Russia is under attack, and if you three write up your overts and come clean then the conditions over there will improve.

As I began to get in comm., the report written on me by Walter Kotric came up, and then a cycle fromKazakhstan.

I had visited Kazakhstan several times in the late 1990’s and at that time met a local scientologist named Bolat Agzamovich. Bolat was working in the oil industry, but had later gotten into politics and had become the deputy governor of his region.

In late 2000 while I was still in Nice, France, I was personally invited to move to Pavlodar, Kazakhstan by the CO WISE CIS, Vladmir Kiropatnik. Bolat had been the deputy governor of his region for sometime; he had communication lines with the leaders of industry all over the country. The idea was that I would move there, work with Bolat, establish a WISE presence, consulting these businesses and maybe start aHubbardCollege.

Bolat had been donating HUGE sums of money to the church to aid expansion. He had donated hundreds of thousand of dollars to start a whole pile of Missions, Narconons, Applied Scholastics groups all acrossKazakhstan. He was quite famous for this.

I saw the annual IAS Event in October of 2000. There was direct mention of expansion of Scientology inKazakhstan, specifically mentioning the opening of the many new groups and also a report that the President of Kazakhstan had officially welcomed Scientology to the country!

This sounded like what I was waiting for and I packed up and moved there in December, 2000. When I actually arrived inPavlodar, Bolat was inCopenhagenfor auditing, he arrived home a week later and announced that he had decided to quit his government post! This was a surprise!

He took over a transportation (tram) company owned by the state and I went to work for him. I worked with him in the Tram company and we had a blast, it was a huge success.

As a side note after my arrival in Kazakhstan I excitedly asked the staff and public about the report that President Nazarbayev had proclaimed an official welcome to Scientology. Well, none of the people there had heard such a thing. I had several people directly contact the government to query this, and we discovered that this reported acknowledgement of Scientology had never taken place.

While I was there I heard some allegations that Bolat had accepted bribes while he had been deputy governor. I was close to him and asked him a few times about this and he said no, he didn’t, so I left it alone. I left Pavlodar in the summer of 2000 and moved to Copenhagen.

What had precipitated being ordered to Los Angeles was that Bolat had been to Copenhagen some time in 2001/2002 and confessed in some sec check that he had in factALLof the money he had donated to the church, forALLthe mission starter packages and Narconons, applied scholastics, etc, all of it, was money he had received as payments for his services while deputy governor. From what I could understand, Bolat finally relented and confessed that all the money he donated to the church came from the bribes he received while Deputy Governor.

This came out right around the Reed Slatkin Ponzi scheme scandal, and so there was a real hornet’s nest over this. I thought it was all a hoot, and I asked if the church was going to refund all the money so Bolat could give it back. My two interrogators failed to see the humor in any of this. .

I was surprised by all this and I pointed out that if anyone cared to look at any facts like dates of when he took the “bribes”, the dates in my passport, etc, it was easy to see that I was never physically IN Kazakhstan when Bolat “took the bribes” but no matter. Logic had no merit. I asked how I could have stopped him from taking bribes if I wasn’t in the country. I was told that I “should have known” and done something. I felt trapped. If I wanted to keep consulting and making money, I had to do it. My choices were to walk out of Scientology right then, or just bend over and do it.

So I did. I fudged my way through it and told everyone what they wanted to hear. I prayed my needle would float at the right time and that no one would suspect that I fucking hated them and that I was on my way out.

I went back to New Jersey in a state of shock. All my stable datum’s busted. From my experiences as a Mission Holder and Org ED with the admin tech I could see that its “use” was making things worse world wide, not better. From my last trip to Flag I could see that the tech was not working. And that it was in fact being used to control people. From my travels I knew that all the hype and PR reported by management was utter bullshit. And now it was crystal clear that the application of ethics and justice tech was beyond gone.

When I got back home I talked my wife into moving with me to Washington State. Just leaving and moving was in itself a form of escape. I felt like I was escaping from a prison, I didn’t let anyone know where I was going. After 24 years of having to report where I was to someone in the church, I was free (sort of).

For many years, from 2000 to 2004 I spoke to no one about my doubts and disagreements. During those years I knew things were bad and I wanted out, but dared not communicate about it. From 2004 until 2008 I had one friend who was ahead of me on the path out who listened as I itsa-ed and to whom I could speak freely. I communicated my feelings, doubts, self invalidations and slowly the fog lifted. I was so indoctrinated with the idea that I must have my own overts and that to have pulled in this bad shit I must have somehow caused it. But as I destimulated I could reason better and evaluate what I had seen. The overall stats of Scientology are down, and have been for a long time. As stats are the measure, then the management must be bad. I personally saw many lies from management about how great things were when they weren’t. I realized that things were bad. I realized that my stable datum that the guys at the top were smart and cool must be way off.

When I lived inRussiaI once heard an Old Russian proverb: “The fish rots from the head.” Of course that datum lined up with all my observations. The bad shit wasn’t a mistake, it was planned. The middle management guys weren’t just nut cases; they were just pushing down the line the shit that came from the top. That datum really aligned so well with what I had personally seen that I knew it must be the truth.

In 2009 I saw the blog “Counterfeit Dreams” by Jeff Hawkins. I read the whole thing. It blew so much charge for me, reading the details of what happened behind the scenes, getting a real view of what things were like. Jeff is such a great writer and what he describes has real impact. It never made any sense to me, why were the DMSMH question ads ended, why was there no new effective ad campaign, how could leadership be so stupid and not see that without a great marketing plan the church would start cannibalizing the public?

Once the held-down 7’s were handled and I could really LOOK it was easy to see WHY Scientology had horrible PR and WHY it was contracting.

I am more than slightly embarrassed that it took me so long to wake the fuck up!!!

Scientology is supposed to be about LOOKING and evaluating for oneself, becoming more causative, it’s about COMMUNICATION, helping others and building a better world.

But the current “church” is all about NOT looking, NOT communicating; now it’s about not THINKING! A current church member is told what to think, what to say, who they can and cannot communicate with. Its NOT about self-determinism, it’s about being a robot.

The current “church” is really like an insane doctor cutting out the “cancerous” body parts to get rid of illness. Those Scientologists who dare to think for themselves are purged, expelled, declared suppressive.

But the church has taken this to a new level of insanity: now it’s the cancer running the church seeking to amputate, cut out, expel, the healthy tissue! Soon there will be nothing and no one left in the corporate church of scientology besides cancer tissue!

Last weeks phone conversation and news of being declared a suppressive person came as no surprise. It was more like the final process of a grade in auditing, you come to the end and someone asks you “Would you like others to have the gains that you now have?”

And my answer is, Yes! I am happy for what I got out of Scientology and I am very happy to be free from the madness of what Corporate Scientology has beccome.

One of the steps I took to rehabilitate the wins I had with the tech was going in session. I found a great auditor, out here in the Independent Field and (with trepidations) signed up to get a review. Part of the auditing program was to handle any by-passed charge I had related to past auditing I received in the corporate church. I recall the question: Were you audited while you were under stress? I laughed and cried and swore my head off answering that question! Was I audited while under stress????? HA!!!! When wasnt I under stress? Lets see: theres the stress of paying the money (or rather borrowing it and worrying about being able to re-pay it) theres the stress of worrying what will happen when youre sent to see the Ethics Officer; the stress of losing your post, or not being allowed to take the next step on the Bridge, the worry of being expelled if you disagree. I was worried before I even went to Flag for auditing: scrutinizing my every action wondering if “it would come up” on my sec check and get me sent to the Ethics Officer!!! I realized that ALL of my auditing in recent years in the church was all done over heavy stress. I was PTS to the Church!!! Needless to say, handling this was a HUGE relief.

Now my life is full of fun and creation. I have taken back up my dual passions of backpacking and photography. I have a fantastic wife and we have a seven year old son. Life is good.

It is good to see someone with your history come aboard. Your contributions to the Indies may be enormous.

The truth is, in my opinion, that very few persons in the CofS ever got through Grade 0. How could anyone, when any comm about the CofS that was not flattering was suppressed. That leads to problems, out grade 1, to withholds and overts, out grade 2, upsets, out grade 3, and serfacs, out grade 4.

The above scenario would definately produce the same kind of stress you mentioned in your post, and the resultant failures.

+100. As many have now said, “WOW!!!!” Your character and integrity are quite clear and the story of your “Trip” reads as if professionally-edited and printed in a prize-winning literary journal. This is exceptionally well-written. Your accomplishments are stellar. With the Orwellian mechanisms of the Cof$ pushing out 30-year-incredibly-productive-backbone-of-the-movement people like you, it is surely doomed. Glad you are so happy now!

Bob, Thank you!
Its odd, people commenting about my character and/or intergity…especially intergity! For too long what passed for my “integrity” was a desire to stay in good graces, be one of the team and forward the “company line” Basiclly I just really liked to help people with the tech. Actually one of the things that stuck me in was that I simply didnt want to be denied the chance to contribute, to help…

Hi Andy and VWD!!! This, above REALLY indicates. One stays because it is the “right” thing to do – “never withdraw allegiance once granted” etc. One is so conditioned that it is one’s integrity to continue to support the Church because it is “right”. But it assumes that Scientology and the Church of Scientology are co-terminal, or one and the same. They are NOT. In fact, if one were to mock up who or what would be the exact, precise wrong terminal to have in charge of Scientology you would get, more or less, David Miscavige. That old Russian saying about fish rotting from the head is just about bang on the money.

BEFORE:
“It started to dawn on me that one major reason for all the expansion in Russia was that they didn’t have the whacko western Sea Org nut jobs there every minute looking over their shoulders, giving them stupid orders.”

AFTER:
“As a side note I spoke to the Moscow Org ED in September, 2010. He was in LA for some cycle and called me. His name is Anton and he was the Tech Sec when I was there in 1998. He said that they were getting around 7 first service starts a week at that time.”

’nuff said.

Welcome out, brother! I’d love to see you on the Dissem Trail again. Great pics, by the way.

Andy,
What a fantastic story you tell. Congratulations on finally exiting the mad house. You have done more to spread the ARC that LRH intended than most. I loved your tales of the booming missions in Russia, where so much fun was had, with people getting real wins using the tech,
Bring back the old days!!!!!

Well done for coming out and speaking up, Andy. Thanks for the brilliant history, a real eye-opener. Don’t feel too bad about your many friends all over the world, they’ll be coming out soon enough themselves.

WOW!!! Is all I can say. First of all you are a great writer and were able to communicate this pain in a beautifully clear and concise way. Secondly I totally suffer with you and laugh as it blows charge for me too. Everything you said indicates at my deepst level. Thirdly, thank you for showing your photograph which is a beautiful work of art!

Richard, Well, my friend my hat is definitely off to you (and your lovely wife!) for all you have done…its not easy writing a short story about 30 years of ones life! And as for the photo comment, (i don’t know if this is appropriate) but here is a link to more! http://www.northwesternimages.com

Andy, I can absolutely resonate with one of your experiences: receiving “auditing” that is so bad, you feel like you are having a psychotic break. In my case, this occurred in session! Twice! Incidentally, I’ve been out of the church a little under two years and have rocketed up the Bridge in that time period compared to the progress I had made in decades IN the church.

Hey Ron! I guess you can’t really even call it “auditing”, huh? Any effort to control or hurt people is made 100x worse when it done under the pretense of helping someone. Well done to you for rocketing up the bridge..its not so hard when those delivering the service have a clean purpose, eh?

The Church of Scientology Inc has lost another family of dedicated church members only to become dedicated members of the independent movement. I can thoroughly understand why you have decided this and wish you all the best.

Andy, I can absolutely resonate with one of your experiences: receiving “auditing” that is so bad you feel like you are having a psychotic break. In my case, this happened in session! Twice! My God, what a well trained robot I was to repeat that experience.

Incidentally, in the nearly two years I’ve been out of the church, I have rocketed up the Bridge compared to the progress I was making as a church. And at a FRACTION of what the church charges.

What a write up! One, it rehabbed the sparkling times of people applying the tech with care to help others and themselves… care & tech, an exhilarating, unstoppable combination. Two, you identify and label the off-the-rails toxicity that seeped in by juxtaposing it with what real expansion looks like, i.e., all those ardent, self and pan-determined individuals studying, auditing, creating and delivering. Three, you’ve pulled out of the enMEST gross chicanery that is Corporate Scientology and are all the better for the experience. And, your photography is exquisite! Four, the future is awesome. Congratulations and Thank You! Power power power.

When Scientology is “done right” it is a real joy, both as the recipient and as the person delivering the tech. Its sad and still pisses me off in a big way that its been so totally corrupted. Thank you for your kind words and BTW, I love your handle!

Wow! What a journey! This is amazing that you went to Russia so many times. I am myself from Eastern Europe, but I discovered Scientology here in LA. I could totally understand why Scientology was booming in Russia and hopefully still is or at least not collapsing as fast as here. Eastern European would never tolerate the sort of Nazi/Communist style management culture that I have experienced here in the U.S. I spend more of my time with the church raising hell about outpoints, writing up injustices, and barely restraining myself from urging to physically drag some of the Nazi or 1.1 staff out of the church so that Scientology could be freely available and used as intended.

As I went along learning LRH and especially becoming familiar with the policies I wrote up nearly every cycle I have ever had with the church including matching some staff across policies out of the PTS/SP pack. I even bumped heads with OSA in my efforts to make sure that my concerns were heard. I also bombarded various terminals with disgruntled e-mails on how non-Scientology the church has been behaving. It took its toll especially that for the most part I felt like a lone worrier in the field surrounded by submissive, “good girl”/”good boy” going along and acting like those monkey figurines coving mouth, eyes, and ears. I can only imagine what I could do if I had some “comrades” at my side. I mean the same kind of sh*t that goes on here in the U.S. would simply not fly in Russia where telling someone to f*k off is a part of and every day culture. You step on somebody’s foot, you tell them to watch where they are going… no “sorrys” and political correctness, guilty complex b.s. that has been indoctrinated into American culture by some sp’s in the gov’t. The sort of vulture SO’s that can have a great time making fools out of and feeding off the American public would simply be eaten themselves in Russia. Andy, you would probably agree.

I really have high hopes for that region in terms of Scientology and otherwise. This country has been heading in some very “interesting” direction. Actually, I have been seeing striking parallels between the developing totalitarianism at the Church and what’s been coming out of the gov’t overall. I can’t help to wonder continuously if those two are somehow connected. Increasing presence of police and endorsing gov’t officials at the Church has always been a growing indicator for me that there is something else going on. And I was doing my taxes the other day and realized that in some way the Church functions exactly like IRS especially as far as IAS (it even rhymes) is concerned. It just takes your money and feeds off your production. Maybe the Cof S is being converted into a totally different organization for a developing police state society – just an idea.

WHOA!! My, my, you and I are wondering alike. Political correctness, suppression of free speech, rapidly expanding federal government and corruption, increasing inflation, Wall Street corruption, decimation of the “middle class”, never-ending military adventurism, expansion of governmental control of personal rights and even biological freedoms. These are Co$ and fed gov parallels, no? To me it is very real that the United States is on track for becoming the police state the USSR was, and more. There is no argument, this country has been heading in some “interesting” direction. What with PDH programming of DM, the elaborate Golden Era studios, “Super Power”, and just the right timing… it’s not unlikely the Co$ and those behind this country’s future have been planning for decades.

“But wait! There is more! If you stick with us just a little longer, you can purchase your own implant programming conveniently streaming from one of our state of the art broadcasting studios directly into your television, I-Pad or another such electronic device. At the beginning of every program completely free of charge you will get an exclusive 5 hour briefing by your beloved leader David Miscavige so your brains can be fried even before we feed more whole track bullshit down your spine…” Have you guys heard that the Church purchased TV broadcasting studio?http://orgsaroundtheworld.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/new-scientology-hollywood-studio-acquired-to-expand-av-production/

Now ,maybe it was just me and my mus-conceptions, but when I started Scientology I thought I was joining a group that was going to fight against the establishment, the stupid “now were supposed to’s” and make a better world. Help the average, hard working guy, all that.
But now it looks like the church is pandering to those who have money, or some status, using and manipulating, in the worst way, the good intentions of the staff.
I see MANY parallels between the Corporate States of America and the Radical Corporate Church…its like they were cut from the same cloth!!!

It is good to have you here communicating with us. Your experience and viewpoints arevital to the total as-isness of the FUBAR (f’ed up beyond all recognition) that the “Church” has become and the devastation it has wreaked wouldwide with it’s “public”.

I am glad that you are part of the cure rather than part of the problem.

Andy, thank you for all your hard work and dedication over the years. Your write-up says it all, so simply, so well articulated. It is heartening to see that such stellar beings such as yourself are now standing up and standing out to thwart the internal corruption that eats at Ron’s works. If you ever get out to central Washington state, please come visit us here in Waterville, up on the plateau.

Andy Porter,
A compelling and fascinating story! Congratulations on all that you have done to help others and your new life. You are obviously an incredibly
capable individual. As I read your story I was riveted. Many will read this. The time you took to sit down and write all will impact others in a positive way, 1000 times over. My best thoughts for your future and thank you.

any on the fencer, any person in doubt, ought to walk into their local org and ask to see a list of all the SP declares in the time line of Scientology from day one. Ask to see the entire list of SP declares, every name on it. Afterall, that list is supposed to protect us from the SP’s. And they ought to see the Comm Ev’s which decided they were SP’s.

Now, one would assume. that a new person coming into the church, what with the emeter and questions, that person would be weeded out right away as an SP. So how is possible that many many people are now SP’s after going up the bridge to high levels. Doesn’t make sense.

And the is the beauty of DM take over of Scientology since the early 1980’s.

I believe most current members are in the Beauty of the Sadness of it all.

Captain Bob,
Declaring someone Suppressive nowadays has nothing to do with a person being an actual 2.5 percenter with the majority of the antisocial characteristics hanging out! That is why it is so totally confusing when someone you know and love has been declared. The new definition is anyone who does not follow Command Intention. That means anyone who disagrees with the out ethics, squirrel, other intentionedness and just plain balled faced EVIL shit this Cretin David Miscavige is pulling and not putting it on the proper lines which is the very same David Miscavige because he has destroyed all the lines and terminals that LRH left in place to correct outnesses observed, gets labeled SP to protect the loyal brainwashed, zombies that he managed to still keep around himself from waking up by exposure to THE TRUTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, getting decleared these days depends on not following Miscavige Orders. If you want to declared, you’ll FOLLOW command intention. People in the Church of Miscavology don’t know what command intention is. That’s why I wrote http://possiblyhelpfuladvice.com/?p=3152.

Wonderful story Andy, and very glad you are doing so well. You’ve been through a lot, a veteran Scientologist in the right place at the right time. Make the most of it. Use what you’ve learned for the betterment of the independents. Just a suggestion.

The corporate church’s fixation on sec checking and punishing productive group members is just their way of saying “we don’t want you here”. Eventually even I got the message!
I look forward to meeting you, Karen!

Great write up Andy. If it hadn’t been for the occasional mission wide rubber-band fights, being staff would have been more gruesome than it was. Even though you went through hell as an exec, you were still one of the best to work under.
MArk E.

That just flat out rocks! I had this same thought a few days ago and could not agree with more! It’s like you have to be declared these days to rehab any real Scientology you got while involved with the church!

I’ve spent a career in management. One truism I abide by is this: You manage _things_ but you lead _people_. When you try to manage people as if they were things, the efforts fall apart.

What you observed so hit the nail on the head: the importance of serving and keeping in ARC. When a leader does not keep in ARC, he/she is out of touch with the reality of that person/being. The affinity drops (you mentioned middle management being almost mean) and the communication gets solid (as LRH pointed out, at low levels of ARC thoughts turn solid and become bullets and fists — a la one David Miscavige).

The answer seems to be right in front of all of us. The way to keep the tech from being bastardized into robotic nonsense is to keep in ARC, to keep the theta volume high, but not to enforce that (cf. the CDEI scale) because quite simply you cannot enforce it and simply get a lower harmonic mockery. To keep it real takes real ARC, and that means you recognize the right of other beings to think, feel, reason, communicate, be, do, and have in their own freedom.

If you truly grant others beingness, the ARC follows naturally. From the ARC flows the true ingredient that will result in serving and leading people rather than making people serve oneself and manage them as if they are things — Thursday stats, income sources, raw meat, etc.

So thank you for affirming the fundamental importance of ARC, and the simple and powerful effect of just truly caring about people.

“But the church has taken this to a new level of insanity: now it’s the cancer running the church seeking to amputate, cut out, expel, the healthy tissue! Soon there will be nothing and no one left in the corporate church of scientology besides cancer tissue!”

Certainly mine is but one of a thousand stories of the corporate church actually going out of its way to create enemies. There is no part of what goes on, inside the church today, that makes a shred of sense…unless you view the actions of the church as efforts to self destruct.

Hi Ziba,
Yes, its easy to see how Kotric has stayed on post so long, he mirrors the “command intention” from David Miscavige perfectly. Under his junior, Sue McClintock, the Sea Org Base in Moscow really was transformed into a real cess pool of seriousness, threats and punishment. Pain-driven management is an illness that is contagious. I am glad I got out of it!!!!!

Great and fascinating write-up. I wonder if we ran into each other as I spent some time in WISE around the same time.
I have gotten to know more about Kazakhstan recently as I am working with someone from that area. When I read The President welcomes Scientology,I was shocked. Then of course, it wasn’t the case. Apparently, he is not a very nice man and his ex son-in-law has written a book about him”The Godfather-In-Law”, which has been banned in the country..
From your travels and adventures in all these countries you could write a book, which I would read.
Welcome to the Indies. And thank you for all you have done!

What a great write-up, Andy. I especially like the format. You take the reader on your long and adventurous journey through Scientology history. And boy, was it exciting. High praise to you for continuing to be a real Scientologist while many around you were going out of valence and succumbing to the suppressive, Nazi-like environment.

The details of your experience of trying to get onto OT VII were especially riveting. I can just see all of those pre-OTs waiting outside the MAA’s office – trembling in fear and propitiation about their awful ‘crimes’. Just makes you want to reach out and ‘touch’ someone, if you know what I mean. As you said, the more training and auditing you got, the more aware you became of the very real outpoints all around you. This is precisely why DM cannot allow the able to become more able. He knows they’d skin him alive, if they saw through him.

Thank you and Very Well Done for maintaining your personal integrity long enough to make your escape, and thank you for sharing your journey with us.

Andy
Thank you for sharing your fascinating journey and welcome. Most of us have traveled a similar road into Scientology, found the marvels that were there, and then began to experience the cancer that you speak of. We’ve all come to diagnose that cancer in what whatever way and time it took. and then made our journey out. Your story will make it easier for the next person to open his or her eyes, and so on, until, as Captain Bob has posted, all the “SP’s” will have left Miscavige’s church. What will be left is the cancer that will devour itself.

Andy,
I must say, I love to see new independent announcements and your’s is a good one indeed. Thanks so much. As for Russia, I saw a glimpse of that side of the world 2009. I appreciate what you did in that place, Cheers my friend!

Hey dude,
Yes, the cook was a blast!
For some reason it is MUCH easier to have “scientologist” friends who are OUT of the church. I mean even when I was IN there was not very much friendly FUN, it was WAAYYYY to serious, This is much better! See you soon!

For some reason it is MUCH easier to have “scientologist” friends who are OUT of the church. I mean even when I was IN there was not very much friendly FUN, it was WAAYYYY to serious, This is much better!

Thank you so much for your story and all of the wonderful work you did for LRH. You are sincerely welcomed and acknowledged as a truly valuable, productive being here in the Independent Field. The dream is alive and prospering, of this you may be certain again.

Looking at Walter’s tone level, neither his “reports”, nor his products are surprising, really. Social tone is 1,5, sometimes he manages to rise to 2,0. For a public paying huge sums he manages to have a friendly face for some short time, while being cruel to the staff.
He himself looks more like to be on Owning Bodies, Controlling bodies. So, what would you expect?
People in his environment are relieved when he goes somewhere else.

Thank you for sharing your experiences. Very informative, indeed.
Thank you for the work you have done.
Using the datum “one gets the condition he fails to correctly and promptly assign and enforce” (HCO PL 20 October 1967, Conditions, How to assign) I followed situations up from the bottom and arrived at the head of the fish, too.
Not really surprising, the Data Series Evaluators Course does not seem to be delivered inside the C of S, anymore. I think it would really help to see things and sort them out. I am so glad it is available outside.

One of the “mysteries” of the corporate church is this: How could anyone who has done the OEC and Data Series Course possibly NOT see how bad things are? The OEC gives a clear picture of how things are supposed to be and the Data Series gives one the tools to know exactly WHY things are not that way…
It only took be a decade after doing the courses to put two and two together, because I was not too willing to swim against the stream. I learned to censor my thinking when ever it came to an idea that Scientology did anything wrong. I always had some excuse to explain it.
It’s like watching the Discovery Channel show on Ted Bundy, Why did he chop up those people and store their body parts in his freezer? Because he didn’t get enough hot lunches when he was a kid!!!

It’s not really a mystery, Andy. In the style of the GAT, Miscavige has orchestrated the removal and/or disaffection of people who did admin training prior to 1986. This left room in org’s hierarchy to install people who don’t really do admin training. As one contributor to Marty’s site pointed out in https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/an-idle-scientology-org-story/, the Malmo “Ideal Org” opened without any FEBC completions on post.

I pointed out a similar stupidity in my own posting about the Phoenix Idull Org at http://possiblyhelpfuladvice.com/?p=7402#more-7402, the hurried, dash-off emergency training being done in the stat push called “Phoenix Ideal Org Opening” is resulting in less than two months’ training for admin staff. You can’t do a Method 1 and OEC volume in two months. So the admin training is quickie quickie quickie.

It’s okay, though, because the staff so trained won’t be on staff long enough to make their “training” a waste of time.

This is very true, Worsel. If one’s confront does not match the size of the outpoints, one can raise it gradiently by confronting a little more each day. I went through this process for some months before resigning.

Andy, – very inspiring write-up which I am sure re-kindled purpose for more than a few people. Nice to read the truth so well written. There are many indies that do understand the reality of what you went through and are very happy that you are now free, – and so quickly back on purpose. Fantastic and exciting.

I don’t know if you remember me, but I went to Russia in May-June of 1997. First to Moscow to release the film EM-1 – Man the Unfathomable – as part of the May 9th Dianetics event. After the Moscow event I went to St. Petersburg and held the event here a week later.

It was in St. Pete that I met you and your wife. We had the event in a local auditorium and almost 1,000 people showed up. There wasn’t the entertainment you described for the 1998 event, but a smaller sample of it and there was a lot of excitiment in the air with the public. However, the film EM-1 made everyone go silent – sort of a total unreality… It was emarrassing coming from Gold as the Event I/C and seeing such negative responses to the film.

But, being fairly independent myself, I wrote a PR telex to Int to “report in” and continued on by capitalizing on the other aspects of the org and event which the public actually responded to. It was one of my greatest experiences doing a pioneer event, mainly because of the numbers of people that showed up, the excitment and the gung-ho presence of the staff, however “untrained” and “un-hatted” they were. Factually, I have never worked with a greater staff than that of Moscow and St. Pete.

I met Galina and Vladmir of course as well as many other great people over there. Another guy from Moscow who was either the WIse officer or SMI Officer was very helpful. I think his name was Vladimir too but he called himself Valodja, or maybe I’m mixing it up as there was a Michail guy as well… Anyway – nice people.

I got introduced to you in St. Pete and you told me a bit about yourself and your history. You even lent me your camera so that I had a nice camera taking shots of St. Pete in the morning and the afternoon on the day I was leaving. I still have two photos of you and your wife, plus all the shots I took of St. Pete.

Your story above is unbelievable, but having been in Russia I can fully relate to a lot of what you say.

As a side note, back in 1997 there was a girl who was a Div 6 course Supervisior in St. Pete. Her name was “Anna” and throughout the 4 days I was in St. Pete she always wore red dresses. She was blond and had tons of ARC – generally a nice girl. I recruited her for the Sea Org along with 9 other staff.

12 years later while being on the RPF at Flag, I ran into her – now posted in Flag Crew. She was dead, dull and had no ARC at all and looked 20 years older. What happened to that nice, gung-ho girl with tons of ARC from the St Pete’s courseroom? Well, she had been at Flag for 10 years… I felt bad for having recruited them…

Hello Ulf,
Well, its probable that we were both discussing the same event, what was the film EM-1 about? Did it have a part where some young girl is getting electro-shock therapy?
Despite being clear my menory is not perfect! LOL!
Its always an intersting experience, when someone reminds you of something completely forgotten and a vague wisp of a memory startes to re-emerge…I do seem to recall lending you the camera…
The write up you posted sometime ago where you dead-agented the Debbie Cook dead-agent materials was supberb!!! One of my favorite write-ups ever! I will drop you a note!

Yes, The Em-1 film ends with a girl getting electrocuted and turns into a bunch of carbon dust. Marc Headley actually plays the psych staff who digs through the burnt remains and finds some jewelry of hers and pockets it. (Mitch Briskers own personal idea – not part of the original LRH script.) The bad psych is played by Michael Wiseman, son of Bruce Wiseman – one of the most active Facebook police officers ironically enough, and Dan Koon played the original roll of the bad psych back in the day when LRH was working on the Cine production of this film, EM1.

EOS was re-shot and released later and it was around 1998 or 1999 so you may not be mixing it up but the only time I am aware that someone from Gold went to Russia to do the film premiere was in 1997 when I went there. Any other time would have been handled by local guys from CLO Eu.

It is possible that someone from Middle Management went to the 1998 event, such as Claire from SMI Int, but from my knowledge, nobody from Int went there after 1997.

I mean no offense t anyone who acted in or produced any of the films…but from the view point of a person whose job was to work with new people introducing them to Scientology, they were all rather abysmal. The ending of Orientation with its stupid hard sell NEVER worked with ANY person I ever showed the film to…there was an older film “Freedom” which wasn’t so bad, but by the time I saw it, horribly dated. But the EM-1 film? For new public? It showed me that who ever created the movie had NO concept of dealing with new people. What was worse, was that Missions were ordered to buy the film and projector (at huge cost!) and ordered to show it.
The entire thing was just like the “Emperors New Clothes”, everyone knew that they sucked, but said they were magnificent!

Bravo Andy !!!
Your story is incredible and moving. All that you did for helping people and expanding Scientology has been amazing.
You DO DESERVE your wins.
You DO DESERVE a beautiful life.
The can’t BE_DO_HAVE is over.
I am sure you’ll be back soon for the real game again.
Thank you for all you have done.

Andy, let me please say, that, by sharing this post, you have done the most amazing job, in packaging an enormous amount of heartfelt life purpose, experience and accomplishment, and at the same time the extreme disappointments and betrayals at the hands of (and exposing,) Scientology’s number # 1 S.P!!!!
( David Miscavige! ).

Fortunately, the good ol’ E / P of auditing, applies here ……… …… DUPLICATION, understanding and therefore an
as-isness of the original item /s.or, technically,(1) F/N,(2) cog,
(3) VGI’s, (4) release! And all this may apply cyber-world
wide, as well, thanks, to your shared experience!

Super, super Well Done! Welcome to the FREE’D world of
Independent Scientologists!

Walter Kotric had been in 1979 in munich org and held a position in the qualifications division. Forgot the post title but had something to do with correcting staff. He had in his desk drawer an axe for „ethics presence“ reasons he frequently put on the desk if he had a staff in front of him that did not comply. Everyone knew this. He then went into the Sea Org. He went up the Org Board. Looks like this kind of person had been promoted and the decent ones did „dish washing“ until they behaved like those on top. The decent ones did not have an axe to throw out those nuts and Nazi persons. As more and more of them entered the top less and less Scientology had been present there. Now they are sitting in their own grave awaiting their body death well knowing that for the next billion years or so they are put into a preserving jar awaiting their trial some day. Beleive it or not, that is their fate. And they know it. Therefore they act now in this very desperate fashion. They know they cannot escape.

Ah yes, I was the first Staff Section Officer at LA Day. The LRH policy had just come out about the newly created qual post: “interested individual handling of the remissness of every staff member.” (Perhaps not verbatum, the memory wanes a bit. lol) No axe called for by LRH. Rachel

George, this description may be the closest thing to trans-
porting one into Auschwitz, at least in the mental plane and
indeed, it probably feels / felt just as hopeless too!
The sending in of the rescue strike team is way, way overdue!

The world did know about Auschwitz. But they did not send in a rescue team. They had their own interests they followed. We would also be in need of a rescue team. But I think we have to do it ourselfs as there will be no rescue team. Some people here on Earth think that there are outer space people that could help us. Some people think that they cannot help us cause they do not want to interfere as they are so good and ethical. Are they? Or do they follow their interests?
Ron mentioned in his lectures the 4th and 5th invaders. Ever wondered what happened to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd ? Politics is not limited to Earth.

George , nice points made! Regarding a rescue, I’m sure
we have the reach and the capabilities, The commitment,
is problematic in terms of legalities, so responsibility
switches back to enforcement agencies. We ALL agree
that it needs to be done, so if there’s the will, there’s a way! (the imagination can run riot at this challenge,hey?)

Regarding the 1st,2nd and 3rd? Afraid no clue whatsoever
on this topic! Hopefully will, up the line. Fascinating!

Well well Welcome and what a story Your not related to some one called Andre Porter by any chance? and old timer late 1960s St Hil.From your write up does not appear you were there. Never the less I was intrested in your time in russia.? The indepts is well alive there doing very well indeed..Do you have contact with any one there at all? You intrested to have dialog with any scientologist there ? I do many.

Andy, I just read your post and all I can say is: “Thank God we have people like you here on this planet!” Well done on your write-up here. It’s very inspirational to me, and I am in awe of your products you have produced.

Thank you very much for your nice words!
One thing is certain, I was no angel!
But you are right, almost anyone and everyone I ever knew that was really out there, disseminating like mad, was attacked and silenced.

I probably should have mentioned that I’m currently retired. But in a past venture, I did hire several ex-SO or staff who had been high producers while working for the church. One for one, they had an amazing work ethic. They had such gratitude simply for being acked – recognized, admired – for their work. The monetary exchange was valued but typically less so than the acknowledgement.

Andy, I totally agree with you about that LRH film “Evolution of a Science” You said: “I still recall the playing of the movie, to this day…the movie sucked!” Andy, you are the first person to say what I thought also. When that film was first released, I took a person who had never been exposed to LRH into an org for the first time and we sat through that film. I was trying to introduce them to LRH and the Church. Afterwards my new friend thought the movie was nuts and decided all Scientologists must be nuts including myself! Just based on that movie.

Welcome Andy! I can so totally relate! I held the same Div 6 post in the Detroit Org in the early 70’s and am also OEC trained. The attitude that ‘you should have known ‘ along with ‘why aren’t you giving and doing it for free’ with major accompanying make wrong for being upstat, are theta killers.

The intense insanity of ever increasing stats is in itself ureal and creates this huge 3D engram. Forcing people to lie, cheat, steal, attack others and do whatever it takes to meet the unrelenting pressure for upstats. I have found a person who evaluates and acts from a theta exterior viewpoint will most naturally create an affluent upstate life. But when pressure to do so from outside sources comes into play the door to other determinism insanity is opened. Balance in life becomes non existent.

Your story so exemplifies how Russia when self determined and not other determined by SO and Scio Inc prospered and flourished just fine.

Thank you so much for your story. Just when I thought I had blown all the charge from my staff days your story comes along,,,,,

The last time I was there was in 2009, I visited the St Pete Org. They invited me for an anniversary event, offered to buy me a ticket and get my visa…There are two Orgs now in Russia, Moscow and St Pete. Their Div 6 stats (at both Orgs) are doing maybe 1/20th of the production they were doing in the late 1990’s. But now there are maybe 50 missions in Russia and only two orgs to send the people to. So, these two orgs survive based on the flow of public from the Missions.
St Pete was St Hill Size when I was there, (bigger than Moscow) and doing pretty well. The ED of the Org, Galina, was the same person who opened the St Pete Mission in 1995.
She is an awesome being and I love her!
The price of auditing was about $500 to $700 an intensive there.
That’s about all I know for sure, and that was 3 years ago.

I think there is something that the general (non Scientology) public miss when they see long term staff and public leave Corporate Scientology.
They don’t “leave”. They are literally DRIVEN OUT by extreme abuse and insanity and that’s only after enduring FAR more than could be considered reasonable.

Getting declared an “SP” is a relief because it ensures a disconnection from an insane and suppressive group – the Sea Org. The “Fair Game” policy now applies in a whole new direction……. The balance of Cause of Effect is rapidly shifting. Every time corporate Scientology declares some one or enforces disconnection, they help speed the process of their own demise.

Hey Mat,
Two great truths you serve up here, one I knew very well and one that had until now never occurred to me before.
Yes, people are DRIVEN out. Actually they are driven out and at the same time “forced to stay in”. Which is a thousand times worse than simply driving them out!!!!!
And you’re absolutely right, Fair Game applies in a whole new direction! I have to admit some satisfaction from this…I’m coming to like this “being an SP” thing more and more.

Yes, driven out! Literally repelled by the amount of entheta. Contrast that with early days when the only place i wanted to be was the org.

So true, Claire. When I was a teenager, and new to Scientology, I was without funds to buy any sort of Bridge, but I’d hop in my car and drive 30 miles across Los Angeles just to be in the org, because it was the safest, most uptone place on earth.

30 years down the track, and my reaction to the orgs had changed one hundred and eighty degrees. I found myself avoiding them, because they had become places of entrapment, enforced reality bombardment, and quite unsafe for a theta being.

Wow. What a great write-up.
Thank you for the data and all you have done around the world in your attempt to spread the wisdom of Scientology.
It will all come out to be alright in the end. I am sure.
I wish you to go back to Russia soon and reunite with those who left the Corporate Scientology since then.

Old Russian proverb: “The fish rots from the head.”

Hahaha! So true.

“It started to dawn on me that one major reason for all the expansion in Russia was that they didn’t have the whacko western Sea Org nut jobs there every minute looking over their shoulders, giving them stupid orders.”

Hi Andy, I remember your lectures when I was a public in the OTL in 90’s. Hope you will get a visa this time.
I think Walter Kotric just been jealous to you guys who were dissiminating in Russia, since it is he “opened” Russia and established Sea Org there and first missions (I think it was in 1991 or 1992) and he was first CO OTL CIS before he moved up to CO CLO EU. He also loves Russia and russians and even had (or still has) russian CO’s Comm. Also I heard a rumor that before he came to Russia he was working on the galley at the Int and he CSWed COB several times to come to Russia to start dessimination there and in an article in old Impact issue (when he was CO OTL) he says that he lived in Russia past lifetime.
He was good guy then but after working in the EU became more mini COB. I remember him just came back from INT to the EU base from private briefing from the COB and how rude he was then.

Hi VMS,
Are you from Russia? What part of the world are you in these days?
As for the discussion about Mr. Kotric, I only met the man once, for a few moments. I did experience him on a via, however. From my view it is VERY easy to adopt a hard-ass, mean spirited domineering valence in the church, especially if one is in management. Certainly there is NO way to keep a post in management today unless you mimic the little dictator…it’s all a sad, nightmarish thing…

Hi Andy, yes I’m from Russia. Sorry for lack of details because I’m under radar and still try to sort out all the mess.
Sad that the Sea Org is used for suppression, that wasn’t a plan however. I see you mentioned valid points how SO “bad ass” attitude can destroy and is destroying safe enviroment for dissemination.
But I also see why Ron created the SO, it was supposed to be the last stand, final line of defense of Scientology.
You know that it has paramilitary form and there is even old FO there Ron mentioned that SO members should manage firearms and practice martial arts (judo) etc. But in later issues he says that SO is administrative weapon of Scn. And in one lecture I remember Ron tells that the SO just by existence itself stopped major attacks on Scn Orgs – because top management was unreachable at the Sea it made attacks on central orgs meaningless.
Such sort of things сould sound unreal, but being SO member in Russia I have some first hand reality on it, we had several raids by FSB (former KGB) with special force in masks with assault rifles, in body armour etc. And few days spent with armed guards under some type of arrest on the base gives a lot of reality. This is why SO was created by Ron at the first place – it was supposed to protect Scn by any means and to create safe enviroment where dissemintaion and processing could exist. I doubt that an auditors or FSM are ready to handle such types of things.
But I agreed with you that direct aggresive management influence on dissemination lines is effectively destroying dissemination.
Maybe SO should stayed at Sea and never come to land, on the land it is so easy to bypass and “make things go right” and create a Danger condition as a result, that alone could destroy any field, even without suppressive management, stat pushes, squirrel study and auditing tech as an answer to wrong whys, etc.

“Maybe SO should stayed at Sea and never come to land, on the land it is so easy to bypass and “make things go right” and create a Danger condition as a result, that alone could destroy any field, even without suppressive management, stat pushes, squirrel study and auditing tech as an answer to wrong whys, etc.”

Interesting thought. There is a lot of truth in what you say regarding creating Danger conditions, though continuous dangers unhandled will result in a lower condition which is clearly what has happened in corporate Scientology.

“In the end it was only when I, personally, had been repeatedly betrayed that I was prompted to take action”
Betrayal as a cause of estrangement is very common. Andy has given us honest words. He is a man who obviously can and has spotted the truth in himself and the world around him. He had no need to dress up his departure as entirely something noble.
Best of luck to you, Andy.

Andy– what an amazing story … you’re like the 007 of Scientology. You embody something I refer to as the ‘nowmad’ … you affirm movement and space and your example is powerful. I really enjoyed reading your story. Big props to you and your journey in spiritual enlightenment

Ah, movement and space, two of my FAVORITE things!!!!
Thanks, and if you ever feel an urge to go backpacking in Washington, let me know, I have many trips planned for the summer and always am happy for more companions!

Dear Andy,
Very well done on all of the Theta you have brought into other peoples lives.
Excellent praise for work in Russia . I wish I could have been at the events that were loved by the Russians. That was the successful action Bro.

I love the title of your article, Andy: “My trip in and out of the Church of Scientology.” Your trip out of the “church” embraces the world with which you are obviously already quite experienced. Well done!

On a personal note, I had a course supervisor at LA Day, somewhere in the 1995-1999 time period, who would not supervise me in her courseroom as I was not on a full time schedule. She told me this to my face. Rachel

Andy,
Good to see you out and about on Marty’s blog. Between the early missions and expansion in the east, your write up tells a very important part of a sad story. But the great news is just how many people you managed to help with Scientology. Those products last forever. You deserve all the accolades even if Miscavige did skew them.

WOW! What a great write up! So many wonderful details that I actuallly had to stop and write down some of my thoughts about what you wrote.

Everything you said about using ARC to create expansion…missions vs orgs…fanaticisms and orders (within the org and also coming down the command channels) made me want to jump and say YES, YES, YES! Eventually it was the lack of ARC in the day to day solving of problems that made me wake up and say, this is not LRH.

I have heard a bit about the Russia trip from Ingrid (not sure if you worked with her) and she also could not stop talking about the incredibly high ARC there was with everyone she met. Her talk was more about getting the admin tech established in Russia. Having been a Div 6er, I am so please to hear the details of the early successes in Russian dissemination. It really did sound just like the 50s to me as well.

Staff on study…again YES! When I was on mission staff, we studied every morning. When I was on Org staff there was always the order to go on study and how it was your responsibility to get trained but there were always production cross orders or TM that made it impossible to comply with and too gruesomes if the orders and TMs weren’t meant. I guess “too gruesome” says it all!

Thank you for the breakdown of award recognition in Russian. The over the top PR really acted as a 3rd party to the leaders in Russia and pretty much invalidated everyone else. The real reward and pleasure of the event was knowing that all of these people who had been under suppression for so many years were at last free to undburden themselves. It was all about the THETA, never the mest.

Thank you for sharing your unfiltered truth, you must be feeling a great relief getting this all off suppress. And, I just can’t tone it down…WELCOME to the land where viepoints are allowed and freedom to think, speak and act independantly is encouraged!

Hi Karen B., Nice to make your acquaintance!
It was fun to write all this stuff up, to finally take the suppress off the communication…here is a little more about Russia:
When I first went to Russia in 1993 on a project I recall the first Dianetics Seminar I went to. I was there as a helper, to supervise during the co-auditing. We went to the hall where the event would be held, it was a huge, cavernous place and we were the first ones to arrive, getting things set up.
As the time got closer for the event to start I got nervous (as I always have, hoping people come!) and went out side to have a look.
A few people started to trickle in, and then a few more…I watched a tram stop nearby, the tram came, crammed with people, all the people got off…and they all came to the seminar! I was in heaven! All the years I had worked in Missions in the US, we would advertise, promote, call-in and really push and it we were lucky we’d have 40 people come to a workshop…and here, in Russia they had a few simple radio ads and more than 450 people showed up!

There are (in my opinion) several reasons why Dianetics boomed in Russia in the 1990’s.
One was that Dianetics was promoted as a science. The populace there was VERY well educated, especially in science and this hit a button, a science of the mind. Another reason was that there had NEVER been anything like it before. Here in the west we have been so inundated with self-help books, pop-psychology crazes, and the like that NONE of it is new to us. But in Russia in the 1990’s there was NEVER any self help books before. And it all sounded like a great idea, help yourself and help other people. in fact, when I would later do workshops in Moscow and St Pete I would commonly ask the attendees what brought them into take their first course and the majority had started in Dianetics because they had a friend or family member that they wanted to help. It wasn’t for them, it was to help someone else.
These are some of the reasons why there was a boom in the 1990’s.

In 1980-81 I had attended a Dianetics Seminar that had about 150 people and still being very new I was impressed by seeing so many people helping each other on such a personal level. Despite all the other people, some just inches away, we were “in session”. I can only marvel at having over 450 attendees at a Dianetics seminar…heaven indeed! Again, WOW, WOW, WOW!

Sadly, the Walter Kotric you talk about is not the Walter Kotric I knew. We were on the RPF in the early 80s together and Walter was this laughing, goofy disarming guy. Sort of like a big puppy dog eager to please.

I guess he molded himself into that which would please Miscavige. It is sad, because I liked him quite a bit when he had humanity.

JD,
I worked with him or years through some good and tough times from the 80’s through 90’s at the Int base. He definitely flipped a few times when he went off to Russia and the big puppy dog totally disappeared with snarling and other beingness put in to survive the Miscavige management era and survive for all these years. I didn’t recognize him when I saw him for several years, receiving his Bday game trophies at events, with no “human side” in evidence. Some XSO friends mentioned this when working with him in EU, but he has to become a clone to Miscavige to keep his post, I guess.

Andy,
Great write up (and photos) of your adventures in and out. Your strory really puts in perspective on the Pioneering areas and the PR BS of events and management. It is amazing how much talent and resources which is wasted by the RCS. Welcome to the Indies!

Hi Sinar,
And thank YOU for shining a light back into the darkness. Reading your stories has helped me.
One story of wasted resources I saw first hand was in Russia. As I mentioned there was a huge boom in disseminating Dianetics, literally tens of thousands of people flooded in for services…but there was very little translated material. for the first few years there was ONLY the Dianetics Book. So, everyone was co-auditing, but then what? People wanted more. There were many people there like me extolling the wonders of the Bridge, but it was closed to Russian speaking people. Slowly some more translations got done, a few basic courses and this helped, but it was glacier slow. I don’t know the back story, as to why the translations were not coming, I heard various rumors, but what I did see on my end was that the reach created for services was NOT being met by the church. So, several enterprising people started to translate LRH books on their own. I had never heard of the FreeZone until I went to Russia, but it was huge and expanding fast! From what I could see the Church had introduced all these people to the tech and they wanted more, but because there were no new translations and courses, many of these people went to the FreeZone where they had already translated the materials and were ‘delivering the bridge”. I saw, later an Evaluation done about Russia and it mentioned that Russia had over-expanded, beyond the capacity of the local missions to deliver. I always wondered why the translations lagged SOOOO far behind the demand. It really put the fire out, so to speak, on the initial boom.

Andy, I’m sure Misha who was the IC of the Russian TU has a lot of back stories on that situation and could fill you in. There simply isn’t enough truth put out at his time on the situation David Miscavige has caused in his actions both in Russia and France to make Scn a bad word there with governments and legal.

I seem to recall from the late 80’s or early 90’s an LRH fiction work being translated to Russian and introduced to Russia. The details are hazy but I believe the book was Fear (could be wrong!) and something came out about a library of sorts. This would have immediately preceded (with “immediately” being a relative term), the introduction of the Russian edition of DMSMH.

I hope Misha or someone has further information on this and can fill in the specifics. Rachel

…something came out about a library of sorts. This would have immediately preceded (with “immediately” being a relative term), the introduction of the Russian edition of DMSMH.

Yes, there was a project fired into Russia to put an LRH library in place around the time frame you mentioned. The team consisted of several members of the church renovations crew, who were all public Scientologists hired on to do all sorts of church projects during that time. I was part of that team, but didn’t go on the Russia project. Some of my mates did, and they told us all about it.

A nice space was donated to the church to put the library into (I think it was at a university). Our guys renovated the space per designs and planning from Int, and it was then filled with a complete LRH library.

Andy! Thank you so much for taking the time to write up your adventure. Your website with the photos is amazing too. Beautiful.

Next time you guys have a get-together out there, we’ll be sure to drive over to meet you. I have some ideas for getting the tech in use out here in the beautiful pacific northwest, and would love to share them with you.

I think we can do some incredible things without the interference of those ignorant, clueless sea org members stopping us.

Andy, thanks for a most fascinating account. I admire all the great work you have done for Scientology over the years. I also admire your leaving when you realized the church was no longer the church you once joined. I wish you all the best.

HI, Mike! Your reply reminds me yet again, that there are
probably an enormous number of non- Scientologist visitors, (and maybe just few Scientologists too!) that invariably get
hung up by M/U’s (misunderstood words, ahem!)
Perhaps, there have been/ are headers or cautions included (this being a Scientology blog) of the standard L R Hubbard “warning” never to read past a word that has NOT been fully understood, but to “clear” the meaning, before attempting to
read on!

I haven’t seen any inclusion of a reference to “word clearing”
as a precursor for persons visiting this blog for the first time.

Just kidding. I know you mean Marty and Mike. Get my point, though? I don’t know how many times I’ve struggled with acronyms while reading here. Lots of folks are ex-staff, and those short-hand terms just roll off their tongues.

Hey Ronnie, just way off topic, here, but mebbe a
little fire starter ( ! ) Have you noticed that we’re
members of an ethnic group here? (the Green people?)
Yeah, when scrolling thru’ for replies,via our “handles,” we
bump into our own, from the ‘hood, so to speak.

Have you noticed that we’re members of an ethnic group here? (the Green people?)

Ha! Now, that’s funny, but I see what you mean. Prior to coming to Marty’s blog a while back, I’d never spent any considerable time at WordPress blogs, so their format is a bit new to me. Didn’t take long for me to notice that one winds up with a unique assigned avatar, and that some folks plug in their own.

I finally got to where I recognize my own little avatar when I’m scrolling around, and I’m beginning to recognize some other people’s. It’s a bit like having a team ‘handle’ or radio call sign. A playfully assumed identity of sorts.

During my years with the church renovations team, my radio handle was ‘Voodoo’. I’ve been approached by ex-RPFers who remembered me well from those days, but who ever only knew me by that name. We’ve had a few laughs about that. I told one guy that my real name is Ronnie, and he said, “Gosh, you don’t look like a Ronnie. You still look like a Voodoo to me.” He just couldn’t make my ‘new’ name stick. LOL

I do read books by L.Ron Hubbard and i like this blog because sometimes quotes by LRH are posted .
Do any of you know where i can go on the internet to find quotes by LRH from the nineteen fifties to early sixties era ? ( somewhere without the claimed to be “OT” material )
.

caladha, here is a gem which contains a wealth of LRH
quotes that can apply to practically any situation:
(book title) When in doubt…Communicate..by Ruth Minshull
Just Google it up ! Believe me! Pure, potent LRH, power!

Andy — a bit late to the party here, but welcome. Wonderful, detailed write up that really puts things in perspective. Off-policy and out-tech is what has killed the RCS, not MIscavige. Though without Miscavige enforcing it, it wouldnt be like it is, and he would do everything he could to destroy the tech and policy.

He has enforced sec checking as the primary activity of any RCS member who uses an emeter. He runs his case on the world. He is terrified that everyone is trying to get him, so he has to keep them in line with introverting sec checks as just think of the horror if they were freer and bigger and stronger!

And, being incapable of managing anything (he truly is absolutely incompetent, he cannot delegate ANYTHING) and NOT trained on the OEC or FEBC, he has take it upon himself to run a black PR campaign on policy for more than a decade. “Nobody can study the OEC as it is in the wrong sequence” (this is NOT a joke, he has been telling people they have to “compile the OEC” for ten years) and this also means the OEC Volumes are pieces of s**t. He has been telling the Pubs Orgs for years “the new OEC is coming” and so they have run out of the existing volumes. Of course, everyone who tries to follow his insanely conflicting orders about “compiling the OEC” fails and he busts them and then declares “You are trying to kill me by overworking me again, I will have to do this myself” but he doesnt get it done either. JUst wait, when he has run out of things to sell he will do a massive international event to announce the “NEW OEC” (done by Dave) and everyone will have to buy sets for themselves and for every library on earth and THIS will be “WHY” he hasnt yet released OT IX and X “because the orgs couldnt boom with the suppressive OEC” and “now they will be able to — all stops are off to planetary clearing” (wonder if there will be anyone left for him to sell his bs to…)

Sorry for the rant Andy. But you really identified the situations and whys, like a good, trained evaluator.

Hi Mike,
You know, I read your comment, and have read your stories of working with Miscavige (as well as other peoples) and when I do I get this sense of horror, a deep down feeling of dread, inescapable despair and …well, its pretty bad! It is a nightmare, that a person such as DM could be in charge of ANY group and exponentially worse that he’s somehow gained control of a group whose initial intent was to help people…
I, for one, am very grateful to all that you have done to expose the evil of David Miscavige.
As for the calendar, would you like one for 2012, or 2013?

This is a marvelous tale, Andy Porter, thank you. Sea Org members and their families are trapped in a sea of suppression. Scientology staff and the public are trapped in an ocean of suppression. Our subject, which was developed to free man (and here and there it has done so) is now most broadly an instrument of suppression. Amazingly ironic and unfortunate. Yet, thanks to persons such as you, the subject is now being redirected little by little, and increasingly so, to its original purpose, entirely outside the official “church.”

The gigantic wreck now known as the “church” of Scientology is now doing no good at all in the aggregate but only harm. What little good it does is now merely used as a hook to reel in the unwary and little by little use them and devour their substance. Tech has been perverted from its purpose of releasing beings from the reactive mind to introverting them and making them guilty of real or imagined crimes so that they will be more tractable and obedient. This has of course been principally orchestrated by one psychopath at the top, but many, many others have been induced to follow. Suppression is now the culture and the unspoken ideal of the organization. The sooner that this grotesque machinery grinds to a halt one way or another the better it will be for everyone.

>>>>Tech has been perverted from its purpose of releasing beings from the reactive mind to introverting them and making them guilty of real or imagined crimes so that they will be more tractable and obedient.<<<<<<>>>>imagined crimes<<<<<<<<<<<<<,

Now that is something when one thinks about it. During sec checks if there is nothing there, one must "confess" to something or else it continues, the money ticking away at Flag intensive rates. The pc saying to himself, thought stopping, I got to get thru this sec check somehow. I can to get auditing.

But imagined crimes, what are these. One would be I looked at the internet for data on LRH or DM. So that becomes a crime. But it is no crime in the real world of free beings. One has to ask themselves, if the general non scientology public can look at anything on the internet and not be sent to jail, why do I as a Scientologist not have that freedom? Who is really free?

Andy, hello. You truly hit the nail on the head. Remarkable write up, I’m stunned at the depth of insanity within the RCS, just stunned.
Good luck and best wishes to you, you truly have earnt your wings.

What a THETA post Andy. I’ve been to Russia, not on church lines, and the Russian people are INCREDIBLY well educated. It’s one of the very few things Stalin did right before he dropped his body in 1953 was to put an education system in place for all Russians to learn. And learn they did. They’re great people and love to learn. I can see why you had the reach you did from the public. I visited a “Hubbard Center” in Moscow in 2005. I later learned it was NOT a Scn church but a center set-up by some sort of indies. It was astounding how well managed and on-source and up-stat their operation was. The guide even had us wash our hands before we were allowed into the food/cafe area of the building. I brought my wife over from Russia in shortly after this and she took Problems Of Work in Russian ( even though she could have done it in English) at Flag. When she finished on a Thurs morning some snot-nosed 15 year-old basically kidnapped her and for over an hour and refused to let her leave w/out resigning. She was crying hysterically and finally allowed to leave. This was such a reverse of the reception she had in the Hubbard Center in Moscow. So…VWD on your work in Russia. My wife knows the cities you opened up. Good job! Also…did you ride the coal-fired trains?

If and when I do write a book about my Scientology experiences most of it will be about Russia, because that’s the only part that was fun for any extended period of time…Yes, I LOVED riding the trains, it was always party time! What city is your wife from? My wife, Svetlana, is from Novgorod.

VFWD Andy! I think I remember you. I was on staff in SEAF from May 1979 till about Sep 82. I remember all that de-dinging craze and how nutty it all got, I even slapped Charlie Earl once (he’s now an OSA bot) maybe he should get slapped a few more times to wake up (joke). What an interesting story, you certainly have been around the world and accomplished a lot for Scn. The out tech of having to use 12 intensives for sec checking is as squirrel as it gets. Getting auditing outside of the suppression is a totally different ball game as you’ve now experienced. I handled something major that happened in 1979 – 33 years later and my TA was floating, I can’t ever remember being told that my TA was floating. I don’t have enough adjectives to decribe that SP David Miscavige who is completely utterly destroying everything, however the tech is alive and well out here in the Independent field. People are flourishing and prospering out here as a result and the SP is foaming at the mouth about that!

WOW Andy! Thank you for the great story! I have definitely let go of my fixed ideas about Russia from having watched Rocky and Bullwinkle!

You can teach people to look up words, communicate, follow a policy, use auditing commands. Unfortunately you cannot teach people how to really care about the person in front of them. And the lack thereof makes the rest a waste.

By best wishes for you to continue helping others as is clearly your way. You do care about people and that is why you have been discarded by that current group.

Rocky and Bullwinkle! My favorite cartoon ever! “Wanna watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat?”
I think that the current church best exemplifies those qualities these days: Mr. Big and Fearless Leader are now combined as one entity and running the church!
One of the reasons I went to Russia in the first place was specifically to see for myself what things were like. I had a sneaking suspicion that all the black propaganda that I had endlessly heard about Russia was either completely false or data that was horribly exaggerated.
And when I went there I discovered that my hunch was right!

Andy — I loved it! I appreciate the level of specificity in your story. It painted such a high-resolution portrait of what you endured in interesting roles in fascinating times and places. Adventures you have had!

Here’s to many, many more wonderful adventures in your future. Thank you so much for sharing your story. :)

Wow Andy!! Mj and I are in Florence, Italy and haven’t had an internet connection for the last few days. We just read your story and are so happy for you!! We are so proud of you and all of your accomplishments. This is just the begining of a new chapter in your adventures. We all knew your “SP” declare was imminent. Glad to see you are taking it with your patented insousciance!!
Love,
Tony and Marie-Joe

Bravo Andy! You made it out. I really enjoyed your story and adventures in Russia and Europe, since I knew little about those areas with scientology. Also like your view, “There is no part of what goes on, inside the church today, that makes a shred of sense…unless you view the actions of the church as efforts to self destruct.”

Happy that you and your family are in a good place now and will have many new friends. Your photography is simply superb! Thank you.

Andy, great story, thank you for sharing! You are a great person and you have done a hell of a lot more for Scientology than any of those who judged you from their ivory tower. Dan Brown (a highly trained Ethics Specialist, and a very cool guy by the way), who ran that “ethics” cycle on you is now out of the SO and lives in Africa and is in some kind of a real estate business. He is a really smart guy with a ton of integrity, I guess he couldn’t stomach what he was forced to do in the name of “ethics” any more…

” I was stopped by an attractive gal in the street and asked to do a survey. ”

That got you in!

TO: ” I saw person after person there in the MAA’s office doing lowers and amends for such stupid things as reading a site on the internet, or looking at “pornography” or masturbating.”

That got you out!

The Church has become “official dick police”. Of all the sorry assed ways to make someone wrong! Someone makes it all the way up to the OT levels and WHAT is the Church’s main concern? “What experiences has your dick had?”

“Hey, get an OT MAA over here that can talk directly to my dick and sort this out! You need an OT over here to do a locate and handle! Don’t use me as a via between you and my dick!”

You know WHY they are making so much money on sec checks these days? You only have with holds when you walk in the front door of that place! WHO ELSE on the planet is curious about whether you touched your pee pee? The more CRIMES they make out of ordinary issues that nobody else has a problem with, the more with holds you have, the more sec checks! Nice income source! Work it David work it!

I’ll tell you why it’s ass backwards. If it bothers the auditor or the MAA that someone looked at a nudie pic , or touch their Pee pee, or read something on the internet……… Then the AUDITOR or the MAA are the ones that have the issues! Obviously the person doing it does not have a problem with it. They are sec checking people and torturing people over issues that are THEIR issues. This is REVERSE Scientology in it’s highest form. Geeze if I am a nre person walking into an Org nowadays I might as well just walk up to the registrar and ask, “What bothers YOU about ME?”
How can I handle that with auditing?

This is what DM did with the “Golden Age Of Tech”. He got up and told everybody was HIS issues were. The books, the definitions, the blind leading the blind, blah blah blah. Nobody else had these issues. He cancelled certs! Ordered people to retrain! That is justice! Because of HIS issues.

Deciding Scientologists need to buy a ship before they can do OT8, those were DM’s Issues. That was having to have before you can do. The same with the Superpower building. The Ideal Orgs, HE has issues with space. These are HIS issues! He is running the Church on HIS issues. Making staff beg? Those are DM’s issues, to get money in exchange for nothing.

As people more and more step back and say, “HEEEEEEYYYY, these aren’t my issues!” They step out of his theater.

The Sea Org enforcing ethics conditions on people when they have extorted money left right and center and have gone so out exchange they think begging is proper, is a nightmare! Sending hundreds of people to do OT8 at 40,000 a pop then telling them to go back onto OT7 without the slightest remorse or amends? The auditors asking for donations from the P.C. before exam? The examiner asking for donations? They have the nerve to get snooty with someone for reading the internet or touching their pee pee?

Oracle, DM enforcing HIS issues on people. Very well pointed out for me, and gave me the cognition.

It also got me to think,,,,,,,,,,,,,

What you consider is what you consider.

So DM has got everybody considering what he considers. And the followers just follow along taking on his considerations.

And one has to ask themselves do his considerations have anything to do with PL’s or HCOB’s or is he altering them for people or public or existing SP declared LRH trained people, and slowing changing the tech thru his new releases of Golden Age.

New person walks up to the registra and asks “What bothers you about ME.” Almost sounds like the start of a Saturday Night Live sketch, or Monty Python.

PC: “What bothers you about me?”

R: “well you seem to have a dead parrot.”

PC: “Hm, what makes you say that.”

R: “Well its eyes are closed”.

PC: “Could be sleeping.”

R: “And it’s hung upside down from its perch”

PC: “Perhaps it thinks its a bat.”

R: “No it definately looks dead to me, it’s not breathing.”

PC: “it’s holding its breath.”

R: “No its dead I tell you, you need auditing. We have a course for that.”

PC: “Really, it’s dead!? You’re sure?”

R: take parrot out of cage and whacks in on the table 3 times. “You see quite dead. Couldn’t be deader. Dead as a door nail. It is NOT alive.”

PC: “Oh I see what you mean, you don’t suppose…”

R: “NO!”

PC: “Oh. Do you think auditing would help?”

And so on…

“And now for something completely different.”

Anyone not familiar with the Monty Python “dead parrot” sketch should Google. My attempt to invert it and put it in an Org setting; PC – random guy off street with dead Parrot. R – Org person looking to get them on course.

This is exactly what I thought. I’m here to save the world and become an all powerful OT and you are worried about me having looked at porn?! Economies are collapsing, people are dying of hunger, killing each other in mindless conflicts, the gov’t is destroying the constitution and taking away our rights, corporation are trashing the earth and destroying the environment… and you are appalled by me watching 3 min of a critical YouTube film about Scientology?! What kind of a planet is this group living on? Though I think validating 2d aberrations and becoming a 3rd party to your second dynamics could actually be done deliberately to drive people crazy. It’s like you become your own enemy so to speak. Damn! I just had a big cog with this one! This was exactly the EP of my “ethics interviews” on the subject. Then you are thrown to the curbside and they wait until you run back to them with cash so that they can fix the problem and save you from your own “demons”… that is of course unless you go completely crazy and commit suicide or drop your body in some other way. Isn’t how the money is made a lot of times – you create the problem, then you sell the solution to the problem you have created… business as usual…

The “Dick Police!” I am just glad I wasn’t drinking when I read that or I’d have died!!!

Holy shit, that is perfect:

” I was stopped by an attractive gal in the street and asked to do a survey. ”
That got you in!
TO: ” I saw person after person there in the MAA’s office doing lowers and amends for such stupid things as reading a site on the internet, or looking at “pornography” or masturbating.”
That got you out!”

BTW, how did you know that about me????
I’ll be laughing about that for the better part of …well, forever!

Andy, when they called you to tell you that you had been declared, they did not give you the name of one single victim you suppressed right? These people you saw at the MAA doing lowers for session data did not have one person there claiming that they had been harmed right? These victimless crimes people are charged with are suppositions. Frankly I have no idea how someone would do lowers for masturbating. Or reading the net. Or looking at photos. What do you say? “I join the group that is NOT curious”! “I join the group that is not in desire!” I choose to remain in the group that is in the inhibit and enforce band on the CDEI scale”????? I mean, I don’t have a clue how they get people to do these conditions!
And I don’t want to know! This is really sick punishing people when there are no victims!!!!! You cannot do this in “wog” society!

As a Sea Org Member I ran a complete “can’t have” on my own desires. Desire is WAY up there on the CDEI scale and I was made to feel aberrated! All Sea Org Members are! Curious about or desire about are strictly prohibited! The “Can’t haves” on the 2D are oppressive! When you can’t even have sex with yourself you have really hit rock bottom. I was sent to the MAA for falling in love. Given a very heavy ethics program. Recruited into the Sea Org and worked six long years without getting laid in a kind of stoic stance. When I left I had been knocked all the way down the CDEI scale. I found myself sitting with a bottle of Scotch feeling a Barry Manilow song:

Mutual out ruds? No. I had never masturbated or watched porn and there was no internet. No history of mine but I do understand. And it does not bother me , the broken hearted and lonely. That is plain mean to fuck with these people. When the Sea Org Members are the most blatant examples of this shit! Just keeping it real.

Wow, I haven’t laughed that hard for a coons age…I have read over your comments 10 times or more and STILL laugh each and every time…
Oracle, you are one of the most insightful and funny people I have ever heard from…
The route to infinity (if by this one means an infinity of insanity) has truly been achieved by the church.
Thank you!
I will go read again…

What a story! Thank you for sharing it. I really appreciated the detail and description of your viewpoint as the insanity unfolded before you.
Unfortunately many parts of your story sound all too familiar, specially the “13 intensives of sec-checking” and the multitude of justice actions enforced by the MAA as “ethics,” and the lies.
Very happy to have you here, you are among friends.

“There is no part of what goes on, inside the church today, that makes a shred of sense…unless you view the actions of the church as efforts to self destruct.”

I couldn’t agree more. My own recent declare was rumor line only from friends until I received a letter from the local Justice Chief informing me “A declare order has been issued on you, which states that you have been labeled suppressive and need to do Steps A to E”, that I need to cease committing present time overts, attacks and suppressions so I may make ‘a’ case gain. I mean, who talks like this anyway? I have dealt with this ‘injustice chef’ for several years and know her to be a personable airhead who is so overworked that she regularly trips on the 1 mm rises in the sidewalk on the way to mess.

It is too bad because she really could be a nice person if not caught up in the web of insanity that der dwarf has woven for his crew internationally. If she only really knew what this megalomaniac says about her behind her back. If she could only hear his snickers and natter about her, she would probably go into shock.

Good thing that she doesn’t publicize what her ‘pending’ baskets look like. Sometimes it takes her a month or two to answer her comm. I am actually relieved that I do not have to participate in the incessant out ethics tech any more. I now have total certainty that it is too late for them to wake up, for they are already dead and don’t know it. I am truly retired from the $church.

I definitely do not agree with point 3. There is a reason why Scientology has boomed in Russia so well. There is a lot of knowledge and intelligence there on the things that do work. Instead I see Americans to be brainwashed beyond repair. People are living off drugs that only result in more complications, eating foods that are poisons in disguise (i.e. sodas, fast, and junk food), mindlessly going to the malls in search of happiness, and now you have the same thing taking place in Scientology and people are still buying it.

In Russia there is always someone you can talk to about your problems. You are free to communicate on any subject with many people around you and spill your soul all you want. Plus, the culture itself has a lot of spiritual depth and there are many other spiritual movements and spiritual awareness outside of Scientology. Criminality and political corruption is a fact of life so you really have to grow up and mature to survive in that environment. Plus, the people have already been through communism so there is a natural immunity. I myself can attest to that. When I came into Scientology in LA and stuff started happening to me, right away I was like: “This is communism!” because I naturally have a lot of reality on the subject. This gave me an ability to quickly recognize things for what they were and differentiate from “Scientology.” Example: I am told to not look at something on the Internet – communism! I look into policy and LRH philosophy and see Scientology. I am attacked from expressing disagreement – communism! I see pressure for collective uniformity – communism! I see people clapping in unison to the bust of the founder and the emergence of a new leader on stage – communism! The list just goes on an on.

See that’s why when Scientology comes to Russia, it really has to be Scientology and it has to deliver something above an already existing spiritual awareness and other movements, as well as rise above a mere ability and freedom to communicate on your issues as you can simply do for free with your next door neighbor.

I think this may be similar to what happens in Germany. The Sea Org tries to pull some sh*t there and the Germans immediately go: “Nazis!” So Scientology really has to be Scientology in Germany.

I can so easily see how Americans could be tricked into accepting DM’s new Commie/Nazi regime. They’ve never had to live through the real thing! Folks in those countries that were crushed under the boot heel of real dictators would naturally see the similarities in an instant!

Well well well. You may disagree with point #3 now, but particularly prior to the break up of the Soviet Union it’s a known fact that there was a long, long track record of unworkable everything there, including the government, food acquisition, social services, the ability to obtain a car, etc. Let’s be real. Maybe that’s why now the culture is able to recognize workability. But I stand by the satiric point I make, and that is, that the Russian culture, particularly with the Soviet-influenced mentality, was that things just didn’t work well in general for the populace as a whole.

You blanket all Americans as being brain-washed. Well, if that ain’t an erroneous generality I don’t know what is. I’m an American and I’m not brainwashed by the media nor the government nor Scientology nor anything else. And as much as it may SEEM that all Americans are brainwashed because of their reluctance to jump up and overthrow all oppressors, don’t be too fooled. It’s suppressive and stupid on your part to say that Americans are beyond repair. American culture is still filled with the original spirit of freedom, personal rights, creativity and awareness, despite the corruption of the global money boys and incompetent government. America is still truly a sleeping giant carrying forth the tradition of freedom and creativity of the Roman, Greek and Egyptian cultures, filled with artists, geniuses, hard workers and compassionate peoples as a whole.

If you want to post something humorous or satirical to counter my statements about that, go ahead. But, let’s not get too serious, huh?

I thought someone may have a problem with my generalization, but I simply replied in the same language that generalized about the Russians. It was simply “look in your own backyard” type of response. I do not disagree with the statement that some things did not work in Russia, but many things did: space program, good results in sports, there was good education and relatively good medical system. When I grew up in the last years of the Soviet Union, it was extremely safe, people had values, there were many sports and craft clubs I could go to for free or some very minimal fee. Yes, you could not get out of the country easily, yes there were lines for bread… sometimes. My parents would send me to get it. Yes, there would be theft, bribes, favoritism, and inefficiencies simply because everything was owned by the government and you got flat pay so if you wanted some more than you had to do something “creative.” Quality suffered because none of the directors were owners, there was no competition, and I guess statistics were not very well organized. I can see the same happening in the States. Corporations grow and become more centralized. There is less and less private ownership and responsibility and a growing “absentee ownership.” And what do you know here you have a growing incidence of fraud by top executives, favoritism, inefficiencies… a growing public reluctance to support such a system… I have seen a lot of parallels in Scientology as well – centralization of power, destruction of private ownership and personal responsibility (i.e. mission network, right?), everyone being turned into a “serviceman” and a follower of the “party,” taking away individual rights, etc…

Got your point, RS.“3) In Russia they’re more accepting of things not working”
The older generations are “flat” on “control”.
(Guess why any [any] Church Scientologist I spoke with within the last 2 weeks has to go back on the TRs/Objectives…)

I see the humor in your post. Love it.
DM is the true communist -> 1.1

I cannot let your posts about Russia pass. I find your generalizations inaccurate and offensive, little more than cartoons. So also your statements about Roman, Greek,and Egyptian cultures. The Romans in particular lacked imagination and much tradition of freedom for anyone other than themselves. They were great engineers, mechanically, socially, and politically, but they were not great artists or philosophers by any means. They were interested in one thing – Empire. Rome produced Roman Catholicism, after all.

America actually does continue on with one Roman tradition – “governing ” the people by providing “bread and circuses” to keep us entertained and from revolting against some rampant injustices. Some protest is allowed. This is smart. At the same time, as a child of the 50s and 60s, I see the virtues you speak of – my family came to the USA because they believed it was “the land of the free”. The activism of the1960s did prove the high degree of freedom here – in many other countries even today, protesters are shot or rounded up never to be seen again. I have a lot of good to say about the USA, but y’all are no better than others. “People in glass houses…..”

But the people of Russia and other Slavic countries are no different, AND they have survived and maintained their desire for freedom through hundreds of years of oppression the likes of which Americans have yet to experience and have no inkling of. Russians as well as many others are often BETTER at “making things work” because they have had to do so against greater odds. Americans feel they are entitled to freedom and that they will never lose it even as it is slipping away from them – just as American CoS Scientologists believe they are the true free people, as opposed to the “wogs”, even as they are enslaved by Miscavige.

Your entire post reeks of this attitude. I think the last word on American self-delusion (or is it a cynical deliberate and purposeful “ignorance”?)
was published in 1958 in this book:

“First published in 1958, The Ugly American became a runaway national bestseller for its slashing exposé of American arrogance, incompetence, and corruption in Southeast Asia. Based on fact, the book’s eye-opening stories and sketches drew a devastating picture of how the United States was losing the struggle with Communism in Asia. Combining gripping storytelling with an urgent call to action, the book prompted President Eisenhower to launch a study of our military aid program that led the way to much-needed reform. “Powerful and absorbing. . . . Should be required reading in Washington.”—Kirkus Reviews “Not only important but consistently entertaining. . . . The attack on American policy in Asia this book makes is clothed in sharp characterizations, frequently humorous incident, and perceptive descriptions of the countries and people where the action occurs.”-Robert Trumbull, former chief correspondent for the New York Times in China and Southeast Asia “Seldom has a deadly warning been more entertainingly or convincingly given.”—Washington Star”

Great job Andy!!! In 2009 I had my first session with an indie SCN and I have not looked back ever since. And I DO want others to have those same gains. To have their auditing without that suppression.

I just wanted to pause for a moment and thank EVERYONE for all of your heart-felt welcomes and comments…You are ALL some Bad-Ass Motherfuckers (meant in the most positive way) in my book and I love each and every one of you!!!

Excellent write-up Andy, thank you! :)
I remember Sue McClintock going to Russia when I was an auditor in Sydney Org. I seem to recall she had to leave Russia quickly before she got locked up. The days when she was in the CLO in the floors above the org there were face-rippings every day ~lol We had to explain to our pcs that it was probably some crazy person on the street :)

Unfortunately her behavior in Russia was picked up by many of the SO staff there in Moscow…new staff are very impressionable!
And her (current or past) husband Malcolm, was one the kindest and most pan-determined execs I ever met…
Were you there when Kim Porter was the ED of the Org?

UK Security Forces (MI5) and their Focus of Efforts seem to be accidentally spilling out thanks to Libya documents.
It is becoming more & more apparent that they are willing to act as Political/& Financial enablers, putting these above true Welfare & Security issues.
Willing to assist in abuses, torture etc, if there was some Political or Financial mileage in it!

“Virtual environments provide a useful platform for any kind of real-life extremist (as is now widely accepted) but it is the formation of groups within virtual spaces that then spill-out into real-space that could become a significant feature of the 21st century security picture. This is happening with, ‘Project Chanology’ a group that was formed virtually with some elements of the Anonymous movement in order to disrupt the Church of Scientology. While Project Chanology (WhyWeProtest Website) began as a series of cyber actions directed at Scientology’s website, it is now organizing legal protests of Scientology buildings. A shift from the virtual to the real”

Clearly the Security Services were more ‘interested’ in Anonymous’s activities than the abuses of the RCS!!

Thank you for this absolutely fantastic write up!
I’m writing this before reading the comments, still laughing and crying on: Have you ever been audited under stress?
I’ll do my best to circulate it widely and get others to have similar gains to yours!

P.S.
I have found what you say about Russia very interesting too. I had never really believed any of the “good news” about it, since I was intimately convinced nothing good could possibly happen after 82 .(Even when Marty talked about expansion in the eighties, I didn’t really believe it! )
So it makes me wrong, but then the truth always helps!
It also increases understanding as to why some of the Ex.-S.O.-Indies hung in there so long.

Hey UR,
Thank you and glad it blew some charge.
The thing (okay, one of the things) that’s so degraded about the current church is that it has become ANOTHER betrayal.
The LAST thing this place needs is more of that…

Andy,
Sorry I am so late — but I wanted to say thank you.
We never met, but I knew of you and your work for years. From the early 90’s when I was involved with SMI and WISE, your name was synonymous with pioneer expansion.
I welcome you with open arms into the Indi community. We could not have a better Div 6 man in the house. And I agree with you on so many counts about the fact that RCS has turned Scientology into a police state. Gone is affinity. Gone is help. Gone is the purpose of training and auditing.
Thanks for putting your journey into words and communicating it to the world! All my love to you and your wife.

Hi Andy – Wow- I was spellbound by your tale. Thank you for sharing it. I was always aware that the Corporate Scientology grossly exaggerates all their “blow out accomplishments” but it has now progressed to all time low to just lying about everything they do.

Hi Andy – Wow I was spellbound by your tale. Thank you for sharing it. While I was aware that Corporate Scientology grossly exaggerates all its over the top accomplishments , it is now very obvious, that it has progressed to an all time low by lying about everything they do.

Hi Andy, What a great thing to have your arrival among us! Much of what you wrote about I had personal experience with from another direction. While incarcerated at the Int base, I had the revolting job of working on those event videos. I made no bones about letting everyone know that I despised every minute of it from the day I was thrust into that position (by DM) in May 1997, until the day I routed out of the Sea Org in March 2004. I made it known I felt the videos and the events as a whole were off purpose and had no redeeming value. I made it known that DM’s brand of videos (commonly called “brag and boast” in the advertising world, a synonym for “stinking bad”) were not in the proper character of Scientology at all. But since DM personally choose me for that post no one else would dare let me off. I was trapped within a trap and after 1998 I was not allowed to leave the Int base (DM’s order); I had to be there at all times in case DM wanted a conference with me. In the end, I realized the only way to get off that post was to leave the Sea Org entirely and that also meant leaving my wife (who was by that time a brainwashed, mindless DM-bot), all my friends, and the only life I’d known for 20 years).

I worked on the Galina and Vladimir IAS Winner videos with Diana Hubbard and Danny Sherman toward the end of my career as a captive brain at the Int base. However by that time, I was contributing almost nothing to the effort: no amount of blackmail, duress, threats or punishment could force me to write another Miscavige video; I had seen behind the curtain. The entire activity did not compute. Don’t get me wrong, I’m an excellent writer. But how does one excel as the author of suppression? For every video, Miscavige had reams and reams of insane, conflicting, and ultimately suppressive orders on how to write each one that guaranteed the final product would be suppressive — meaning anti-Scientology. These orders were in the form of past rejects and transcripts from meetings with Miscavige.

A few years earlier, in 2000, I collected up all of DM’s orders for every script, put them in binders in an effort to study and make sense out of them. There were more than 35 different types of videos that we wrote routinely, each with reams of orders specific to that kind of video. Altogether, Miscavige’s orders for how to write each type of video comprised a staggering 12 linear feet of shelving! Added to that were all the scripts Miscavige had approved in the past, which he demanded we refer to as references. That added a few more feet of paper.

Maybe one day I’ll use my scriptwriting skills to write a movie about scriptwriting for DM, I’d call it, “Cultural Spinning for Make Glorious Reputation of Leader Miscavige.” We lived a Borat movie.

Suppressive personalities hide in chaos, and nowhere is that more true than the Int base where invalidation, personal attacks, condemnations, assault, battery, ethics and justice actions rain down with such ferocity, against sleep-deprived staff, with weekly meter checks looking for any dirty needle (negative thoughts), plus constant sec checking and public confessions and surprise inspections, for key people, only the toughest of the tough could weather the hurricane without getting blown away.

With Galina’s and Vladimir’s videos I remember specifically being concerned that they were going to upset the field by falsely setting up the award winner as THE person who did everything — thereby invalidating all the others who had helped. I spoke about this to Diana, but we could do nothing about it.

The arbitrary rules Miscavige had established for those videos were as unbending and unyielding as he was. You either wrote by his rules, or you walked away… from everything. Which in the end, is what I did. Like you and every Independent Scientologist.

The videos were products of suppression. So of course they were themselves suppressive.

These days every time I read a story like yours Thoughtful I think how many more are there who are driven to the extreme step of leaving everything behind after 5, 10. 20 or more years. And how many more are there that suffer silently or in total denial because they’re understandably unable to face what surely must be a yawning abyss without any sign of a safety net.

Those who make the leap must surely have big cojonas yet what impresses me more is how many go on to thrive in the life outside.

One hopes with so many ex corporate scientologists of all flavors those that remain might catch a glimpse of a safety net and be encouraged to take that leap.

From my view, when I was “out front” spreading the word of Scientology, reading about your experiences in marketing at the Int base clear up SO many confusions! It always blows charge for me to read about your exploits!
Its one thing to lie when the truth won’t work, but to lie when the truth is perfectly acceptable???
WTF?
But now it all makes sense: DM is insane.

On a more important note: Where do I go to get my name added to the Indie 500 list?

Hi Andy! For the Indie 500 list, just send to me at indie500@nyms.net. Include case level, training level, years on staff (if any), awards and recognitions. All of which helps to demonstrate it is the cream of the crop who are leaving the Cult of Miscavige.

My god, Thoughtful!
In my mind there is one thing that’s worse than forced confession, eating garbage and sleeping in a ant infested place, and that’s being forced to make or contribute to artwork one hates!

YEE HAW!!! What a wild story! WELCOME, WELCOME,WELCOME! We need your dissemination abilities! You are obviously a stellar stat maker! Thank you for taking the time to tell your tale of how you came to be an INDIE. Hope to meet you at the Indie Party.

Hi Andy, I was in SMI toward the end of the eighties. As I was the Dist Sec (over expansion) every week I had to compile a a good news briefing re expansion in the mission network. The routing was as follows: Dist Sec Smi Int to CO Smi Int to WDC SMI to WDC Chairman to COB RTC. By the time it got through WDC SMI whatever I had originally written had been heavily doctored to make it seem even better than it was. We often got rejects from wdc because what we had written was not good enough and we were ordered to leave out bad parts and to pour the coal on good parts. After a reject CO SMI INT would doctor the news quite strongly, then WDC SMI would doctor some more. By the time it went up the lines, the news was (or at least appeared) 10X what it had been. Already toward the end of the 80’s, in upper middle management, we were all trying to please the Great Leader as we were in terror of being reprimanded or sent to the RPF.

I don’t know if the same would apply to Wise and the other sectors, I just remember that in 2004 my wise consulting company had to appear in the new year’s event and so I was ordered by Wise Int to send to LA some footage of my company and its seminars. I was already disaffected back then and I wanted to avoid all the exposure (and the aggrandizment of the news that would follow), so I sent up some crappy videos instead hoping they would just file them away and forget me and my company. Instead after a couple of months I got an ethics mission… ;-)

Glad you are out and safe. I hope someday both Claire and Beate will cognite too.

Hi Paolo,
I remember you! You spoke at several Mission Holder Conferences…glad you made your escape! I just got an email from another long-time SMI person who also made it free…
Nice to meet you again, outside of the joint!

Hi Andy, thanks for the extensive and comprehensive story you gave us about your track in Scientology.

Amazingly Admin Tech as you said is used in Corporate Scientology to destroy.

I am in Greece. Since you are a pioneer of Scientology opening up many countries and since you have held executive posts in the organization I do believe one day we will meet. I think with Standard Admin we can expand the Tech.

Hmmm… Aaaandy…. You read my post years ago? So you have been a naughty boy for some time now… hahaha.

I am honored to be with you now in the same team.

You have amazing speed and quality of communication, lots of action, too. What better friend and ally could I ask for?

Yes my experiences have been true and truth is going to prevail. The translations issue is not just an Ethics issue anymore. It becomes AGAIN a Tech issue and an Issue for the Clearing of the Planet, as LRH intented it to be in the first place.

Andy,
Firstly, welcome “out”, and congrats on a stellar career. I prefer to say that we here are the ones that are “in”, and that the Church itself has moved “out”.

Second, you worked with my brother in Russia for several years, so I would really like to have some live comm with you. I think we even spoke by phone once or twice back in the late nineties. Please send me an email to “axiomatic @ hushmail.com” so we can hook up.

Hi Andy !!! thank you for your report. So well done!! Sorry I’m late getting here. Was really busy the last few days and wanted to read every word. So many important points. And thank you for your honesty. What an amazing being you are. All that dissemination in all those countries. Welcome to freedom! Scientology can be and can accomplish what we first thought of it. We weren’t wrong. The Church went wrong.

Thank you. That was my point. SP declare nowadays mean you are SP to DM (not Scientology, but twisted to mean the same) and his considerations (not HCO PL’s or HCOB’s) of what needs to be done, as there is no International Management, and there is no Board of which he is Chairman of the Board.

Has DM ever stated WE the Board decided WE need New Golden Age of Tech???????? And who is “WE” of the Board?

Andy, that was a great write up and so helpful to understand what went on in Russia. Great observations. In these DM events I always had the feeling getting bullshitted beyond recognition. Glad to hear my feelings were spot on.

This is truly an amazing story – not only of what someone can achieve under such chaotic and difficult circumstances, but the realisations also along the way. How long did we all not look at what we saw was happening, and try to achieve what we now realise was impossible.
Having been at FLAG in 2002 and almost being psychotic myself, for not following my intuition – not sleeping, being red tagged at the examiner and then dreading to go after a session – looking back at it now, how insane was that!! A lot of what you have said here Andy about waiting so long, I duplicate completely. – the more aware I became, the more outpoints I saw. I could see OT’s not doing well and on withholds, and realized, I was becoming like that too. I was lying to myself. The amount of people who sacrificed so much and gave their all, and then some, is so outrageous. Your story is inspirational and makes me want to get back to doing something again – Dianetics preferably – anyone in New Zealand here doing remarkable things in the independent world??
What you accomplished, the interesting life in Russia and other parts of the world in an exciting pioneering capacity and personal realisations along the way make this story so memorable Andy.

Andy – Thank you for your story. I know that this is just a tip of the iceberg as a man with your experience has many tales to tell. I have known you since 1983 and I have always considered you a powerhouse here in the Pacific NW (even when you were in Russia you were talked about with admiration here). I am truly glad you are out from under the Suppression of the Corporate Church and are breathing the air of freedom!

Andy, great vivid and real write-up! I want to Thank You for everything you did in Russia in particular, as I was born into a Russian family and have a “Russian Heart”; although I have never been to that country, I feel some bond with those people over there.

Hello Andy,
I believe we met in 1993 in Moscow, in OTL where I worked as a Course Sup, there were also Bertha and Veronica running the org. I am glad to share with you the reality on expansion in Russia. Totally different atmosphere, ah? Do you think to get in comm with independent movement in Russia, or is a country still close for you to visit? We could also had met in Saint Petersburg too, that’s my city. I was one of the 5 Book One auditors who formed the group that grew into the St. Pet mission. Galina was one of us.
Congratulations on breaking free from suppression! :)

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